Grounded
by thegoldenfirebolt
Summary: Harry gets caught sneaking around in the dungeons. Snape grounds him before realising he isn't one of his Slytherins. They are stuck with each other until the spell stops.
1. In Trouble

Harry was very pleased with himself. Setting up the prank had gone off without a hitch! The Slytherins wouldn't know what had hit them tomorrow. And he was fairly sure they wouldn't be able to blame him for it either.

He felt a little bad about inflicting it on the entire house. The rest of the Slytherins were a bonus– really it was just Malfoy who was being as unbearable as usual.

Malfoy had been a total jerk to Ron since the train, and he kept saying things about Harry's parents too. He had quietened down for about a week after the incident of the _Amazing Bouncing Ferret_ , but now he was back to full strength.

Harry smiled to himself. Hopefully this would subdue him for a while too.

"Who is there?"

Harry froze, checking that his invisibility cloak was fully covering him. It wouldn't do to let a floating arm or disembodied foot give him away.

"Reveal yourself."

Looking frantically around, Harry saw Snape emerge from the shadows of a dungeon corridor. He pressed himself into the wall, holding his breath. That had worked before.

"I thought I told you to stay in your common room? I am only giving you one warning." Snape's voice was low and threatening. Harry was a little confused, did the professor think he was one of the Slytherins?

Snape's dark eyes swept around the corridor, trying to detect any flicker of movement.

"You have precisely three seconds to show yourself. If not, you will be confined to your common room for the weekend."

Snape didn't count aloud as Harry was expecting him to. Instead he stood very still, eyes not stopping their constant shifting. It was therefore a shock to Harry when Snape drew his wand and cast a spell with a simple, expansive movement. Instantly, the potions professor turned to look at the spot Harry was standing in.

"Ah, so you are there. Kindly cancel your disillusionment charm, or whatever it is you are using. Then we will- Stop!"

Harry made a break for it. He narrowly avoided the hand which was reaching out towards him, ducking under the arm instead. He practically flew up the few steps which lead to the Entrance Hall and freedom.

Right at the top of the stairs though, a green door was blocking his escape. Harry had never seen one like it. It looked like solid wood but something seemed to be shifting slightly inside it. Like the swirls that appeared if you dropped ink into a glass of water.

He grabbed for the door handle but as hard as he pulled, it wouldn't budge.

Harry heard unhurried footsteps behind him, before a hand took hold of his shoulder, spinning him around. The cloak slipped a little and Harry realised he was fully visible to the professor.

"Potter?" Snape looked surprised for a moment. Then he smirked, "This is uncharacteristically cowardly of you, Mr Potter. Are you so frightened of earning a detention?"

"I'm not stupid, Sir. Who would go to a detention if they didn't even get caught?"

"But you very much were caught, Potter." Snape drawled. "That is what we call it when you are discovered out of bounds after hours."

Then his face fell and he brought up a finger and thumb to pinch his long nose. He gave an annoyed sigh.

"I did, however believe it was one of my Slytherins who was breaking curfew."

Harry just shrugged. "There might be one." He offered, "I don't mind if you go check. I'll just head back to my common room and you can get on with your Slytherin duty things."

Snape fixed him with a glare. "Do not even try, Potter. You will not be able to get through that door. Come along."

Snape turned to go, but Harry didn't move.

"Sir, go where?"

"As much as I would like to give you detention all night for disturbing my sleep. The headmaster frowns upon such practices. Since we both have classes tomorrow morning, we are going to bed."

"But Gryffindor-"

Snape sighed again, "Potter, you cannot go through that door. You do however have a choice about where you would like to sleep. You may sleep in the Slytherin dormitory with your classmates, or you may sleep in the isolation room near my quarters."

That wasn't really a choice. If Snape took him into the Common room, he might discover the practical joke which was set up. Even if he didn't, the Slytherins wouldn't take too kindly to him having appeared on a camp bed in the middle of the night.

"The isolation room, I guess."

"Yes, I had rather thought you might choose that."

Harry didn't really understand what had happened. Snape seemed to have cast a spell which had told him exactly where Harry was, but which also had the effect of conjuring the strange door which had stopped him leaving the dungeons.

Snape led him down past the Slytherin common room, and down a couple more chambers. Until they reached a dead end wall with a few doors along the edges of the corridor. Snape opened one of them, pulling Harry inside.

It was just a small room, with only enough room to fit two beds. There was a doorway leading to a bathroom as well, but looked like there was hardly any space in there too.

The bed was already made up with white sheets and a small pillow. The whole room was a bit clinical, sort of like the hospital wing.

Snape sighed and Harry looked up at him, nervous.

"Why is it always you who has to cause so much trouble? We have barely been back a fortnight and already you are roaming the corridors at night, causing mayhem."

Harry tried to appear contrite. Snape just eyed him with distaste.

"I will collect you tomorrow morning at seven o'clock. You will be dressed in the plain robes which are in the bathroom. There should be pyjamas inside the bed."

Harry nodded, getting out of the way so the professor could leave the room.

"Yes, Sir. Seven it is."

"And no more wandering, Potter. I will know. Tomorrow I will explain your punishment."

Snape left without another word, slamming the door after him. Harry considered trying to leave but thought it probably wasn't worth it. Snape would have to let him leave the dungeons in the morning. It was a Thursday after all, and he had classes. And when he was allowed out, Snape couldn't make him come back down here.

Harry reconsidered. Technically, Snape _was_ physically capable. It was less likely that the other teachers would let Snape drag him around the place though.

He got changed into the pair of huge, green pyjamas he found under the bed covers. Harry grimaced, it was like wearing Dudley's old clothes again. One size fits all shouldn't count if it included people the size of Flint.

As he drifted off to sleep, Harry smiled, thinking of the shock all of the Slytherins were going to get at breakfast.

"Up, get up! Now!"

Harry groaned, rolling over to bury his head in his pillow.

"I'm awake, Aunt Petunia."

"Indeed?"

The door opened, and Harry was confused for a moment about why he hadn't heard the locks being undone as he usually did. He peeked up through bleary eyes to see not his aunt, but a very irritated looking Professor Snape standing in the doorway with his arms crossed.

"You were instructed to be prepared by the time I arrived, Potter. Not dreaming about your indulged home life."

Harry shot up to his feet, swaying for a second as all of the blood rushed from his head. He glared at the professor. What did he know about life at Privet Drive anyway?

Snape's lip curled as he took in Harry's scruffy appearance. The boy looked particularly dishevelled this morning. More like his father than ever with his hair sticking up all over the place. There was one blatant difference - James Potter would never have been seen dead in clothes like the ones his son was wearing now.

"Sorry, Sir." Harry said, stifling a yawn. "My alarm clock is back up by my bed."

"And you do not know how to cast a Wake-up spell yet? Or how to shrink fit clothes? Have you got some personal vendetta against everyday spells?"

Harry blinked blankly. He didn't know how to do either of those things actually, but now Snape had suggested them both, it did seem the obvious thing to have done.

"This is why we do not strut around the school at night, Potter. You have three minutes to get ready, then you are coming up to the Great Hall, day robes or not."

Snape leant against the doorjamb, waiting while Harry sped around the room. Snape had already started walking towards the bathroom door when Harry emerged, fully dressed in the large robes provided, ready to go upstairs.

When Harry made no move to shrink the clothes himself, Snape drew his own wand and let them draw together so that they formed a much thicker, but more compact set.

"Thanks, Professor. That's really nifty." Harry was very glad that he wouldn't have to spend the whole morning in clothes which were 6 sizes too large. Malfoy was going to have a field day as it was.

Harry grabbed his wand and Invisibility cloak from where he had left them on the other bed. He was worried for a moment that Snape might try to take the cloak away from him, but the man just led the way out of the isolation room, towards breakfast. Harry hurried to stuff them both into his pockets.

Snape spoke as they walked.

"Thanks to your infinite stupidity last night, I was forced to detain you here. I had thought that any student in the dungeons after classes had ended were more than likely to be in Slytherin house. Indeed I had been called to the common room earlier in the evening due to students being out after curfew. I expected it to be the same person."

He half turned back to check that Harry was following him.

"As I expected the student to attempt to flee, I cast a containment spell which would reveal where they were and prevent them from leaving the dungeons. The spell lasts for about four days, so it will end late on Sunday night, in time for you to return to classes on Monday morning as usual. Understand?"

"Not really." Harry said, "Are you saying I have to stay in the dungeons for all that time?"

Snape grimaced, "You will not be able to leave the dungeons unless you are escorted by myself. You will not be able to walk more than 5 yards away from where I am or you will be forced to follow. You will have to explain to your other professors why you will not be able to attend their classes for the next two days. And you will have to sit at the Slytherin tables during meals."

"What? Why?" Harry was alarmed, he couldn't think of any reason why he should have to do that.

Snape merely rolled his eyes at the reaction. "They will not kill you, Potter. And as I have already said, you will be unable to move far enough away for you to sit at your house table while I am at the staff table. The staff have no reason to accept you at their table, and there is absolutely no way I am going to sit with a load of Gryffindor brats."

"Can't you just cancel the spell if it's going to be such a pain to everyone?"

"Unfortunately, that is not possible. The spell only breaks after the allotted time has passed, or if your life would be in danger because of it."

Harry groaned loudly.

They reached the large green door and Snape put out his hand to pull it open. It swung open as if it had never been locked. Snape took Harry by the shoulder and guided him through into the entrance hall.

"Have you done this before, Professor?" Harry asked, nervously glancing around in case some Gryffindors suddenly appeared.

Snape smirked, "A few times. If you see me sitting with the Slytherins, or if I have a student assisting me in Potions."

Harry thought he could remember that happening a few times since he had arrived at Hogwarts, but it was by no means a regular thing.

"Of course, each Head of House is entitled to do so. You may notice that Professor Sprout is the most frequent of us to use the spell. She says she uses it as an opportunity to 'stay connected with her students'," He scoffed. "Professor McGonagall is not fond of it, however, which is likely why you have not noticed it."

"But how does it even work? I'm not a Slytherin!"

"Lower your voice!" the Professor snapped. "The spell is actually in common usage. Wizarding parents use it to discipline their children. You're friends, the Weasley's, used to be very fond of it. But at Hogwarts, it is only housemasters who have Professor Dumbledore's permission to use it."

Harry thought about that, he was pretty sure he had heard Ron complaining about being 'grounded' before. The Dursleys had never done anything like that to Dudley, but they didn't think he ever did anything wrong. When Harry had ever been confined anywhere, it was always to one room; either his cupboard or Dudley's second bedroom. Other than that he had only really heard about it on TV. It wasn't a very British thing to do.

When they entered through the doors of the Great Hall, Harry absent-mindedly started towards the Gryffindor table. Snape threw out an arm and steered him towards the front of the Hall instead.

"Not so fast, Potter. You still need to speak to your teachers first."

The tables he was led past were mostly empty at the moment. It was still early in the day and in a school full of teenagers, most people waited until the last possible moment to get out of bed. There was only the Hufflepuff quiddich team, a handful of Ravenclaws who seemed to be holding some kind of pre-breakfast art club and a couple making eyes at each other over the Gryffindor table.

The staff table on the other hand was almost completely full. The teachers usually _did_ try to get down early so they could get prepared for classes. A few were missing, Hagrid wasn't there and neither was Professor Sinistra, but they both had to stay up late at night as part of their job.

The Staff watched as Harry and Snape approached. Dumbledore smiled serenely at them, barely distracted from his paper. Moody was looking suspicious of them both, eyes flickering between them, but that was pretty much how he always looked. The rest of the staff were pretty nonplussed apart from Professor Sprout who suddenly grinned broadly and whispered into the ear of McGonagall next to her. McGonagall's mouth twitched in one corner.

Harry groaned quietly.

"It's not you they're laughing at, Potter. Do be quiet." Snape muttered to the side.

"Professor Snape, you seem to have caught a lion." Dumbledore chuckled. "Or put one on a lead, perhaps."

"I thought he was one of my older Slytherins, disillusioned" Snape said. "I had forgotten about Potter and his blasted invisibility cloak. At the time I was not aware it was him I would be stuck with. Potter, say your piece. This audience should be large enough for you."

Harry swallowed, "Um, Sn- Professor Snape put some confinement charm on me, so apparently I can't go to classes until Monday. Could I get something to work on to make up for missing it?"

Professor Sprout looked at him kindly. "Of course you can, Mr Potter. I will send some work down later. This might give yourself and Professor Snape the opportunity to build on your relationship too."

Harry very purposefully avoided looking at Snape, who he had felt tense up next to him. There was also the matter of the low growl that was emanating from the man's throat. Harry wondered for a second if the Herbology teacher was annoying Snape on purpose, usually she was very no-nonsense, not the kind to talk about feelings…

The hall was a little busier now, with groups of student strolling in and sitting at their house tables. With a sudden lurch, Harry remembered why he had been out of bed last night in the first place. He watched the first large group of Slytherins – about twenty of them - walk in together to sit at one end of the long house table.

Snape was still talking to the other staff, "-you may send any work down with any Slytherin or any other student coming to Potions. Be sure to send enough to keep him busy, I am going to be stuck with Potter until Monday. There are only so many floors that need scrubbing, and Potter is hardly capable of preparing anything more complicated than mashed flobberworms."

Snape whirled away, heading for the Slytherin table and Harry only just remembered that he had to keep up. The Professor picked a place on the bench next to his sixth year prefects, who didn't seem particularly perturbed. They did give Harry a curious look, but were soon distracted by a conversation with Snape over a proposed change to their patrolling duties.

Harry collected himself a plate of toast, hoping that if he ate fast, Snape might decide they could leave early. He felt more anxious as the seats around him filled up. He did allow himself a small smirk when he saw Malfoy sneering at him from down the table.

Unfortunately, Snape had decided to eat slowly this morning, probably because he could tell that being at the Slytherin table was making Harry nervous. The man positively lingered over his last half cup of coffee.

Harry was just starting to think that the joke had been a failure when he saw it happen.

The Slytherin prefects' hair turned bright green. Both of them changed in the same instant, his red hair and her blonde did a synchronised colour change. Neither of them noticed to begin with, because they were both so focussed on what Snape was saying to them. It was only when the Professor looked up at them and dropped his teaspoon and his jaw that they noticed anything was wrong.

From that moment on, almost every ten seconds, another Slytherin head would suddenly flash into the same shade of emerald. The students on the other tables were howling with laughter, as the wave of green passed down the table.

Harry was delighted to see a frantic Malfoy conjure a hand mirror just in time to see his own slicked back hair dye itself from the roots down.

Then he felt a hand on his arm.

"Did you not think last night," Snape started in a dangerous tone, "That it would have been wise to inform me of this, before it got to this stage. I would imagine, even if you had not felt the slightest prick of conscience, you might have a glimmer of self-preservation. Have you forgotten you will be staying in the Dungeons for a few days?"

Harry swallowed, trying to look as innocent as possible.

"Sir, how could you think I could-"

"So if I were to examine your wand right now, I would not find any evidence of a time-delayed colour change charm? Or a banishing charm to dispose of a bottle of Madam Mim's Witching, Wavy hair dye?"

"Uh…"

"That's what I thought. Luckily for you, neither of those are permanent, especially when spread so thinly. Unluckily, everyone in my house knows you are responsible and they do not take well to being embarrassed in public."

Harry had been starting to notice the stares from around the table. If the room hadn't been full of quite so many witnesses, or perhaps if Snape wasn't so close as to be practically a human shield, Harry would have been in big trouble.

Snape stood up, pulling Harry with him.

"Come along then, Potter. Since you are so eager to start, you can begin your first detention before classes start."

Harry scrambled around so that he could put Snape in between himself and the table of angry students. He looked over the top of the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables to see Ron who was giving him a not very discrete thumbs up. Harry knew Ron wouldn't be quite so happy if it was him who had four days of Snape lined up.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Four days was hardly anything.


	2. Bad Lessons

Snape had a third year class for his first lesson; Hufflepuffs and Slytherins. The Slytherins' hair was still as bright as it had been at breakfast, but it would probably fade by the end of the day. They kept throwing venomous looks at Harry but he was too busy to notice.

It turned out one of Snape's classes had over-run yesterday and the students had had to leave without tidying up. This meant that there were about twenty cauldrons which needed to be cleaned to Snape's exacting standards. It was taking a long time.

Harry was still working at the last couple when the next class arrived. With it, appeared Fred and George Weasley. They tried to argue with Snape about whether Harry was really to blame.

"Professor, there's no chance Harry did it-"

"Yeah, all he did two years ago was try to convince everyone he wasn't responsible for all this 'Hair of Slytherin' stuff."

Harry tried to choke down a laugh by hiding his head in the cauldron he was cleaning. He saw Cedric Diggory trying to hide a smile as well from the other side of the room. Snape wasn't amused by the pun, and made some strong, sarcastic remarks about their potion.

It didn't stop them.

"Don't brush us off, Sir!"

"Just mullet over. Don't bleach it from your memory."

Snape turned away in disgust.

Fred leapt to his feet, with his hand up in the air. It was a surprisingly good imitation of Hermione.

"Wait, Professor, come back-"

Snape turned his head slightly.

"I moustache you a question!"

Harry couldn't hold back his laughter, snorting loudly. Snape whipped back to him instead.

"Mr Potter, you are obviously not feeling challenged enough with your current task, since you have the time to listen in to my teaching. When you have finished that, you can begin to copy out the instructions for this potion. Four times should do the trick."

"Misters Weasley," he snapped. "Thirty points from Gryffindor for disrupting my class. And it will be another thirty if you do not complete your potion to my satisfaction."

The Gryffindors moaned a bit, but they were obviously used to the twins losing house points. Angelina Johnson did hit Fred over the back of his head, but overall they didn't seem to mind very much. The pair earned enough points for other things, usually quiddich.

The potion the class were brewing had long and complicated instructions. Harry had to start shaking out his wrist between sentences somewhere in the middle of the second copy.

When the sixth years left, Snape waited a couple of minutes for Harry to finish his last set of lines. On the way up to lunch they met some of the older Slytherins who were heading up from their free period. Snape frowned when he saw them.

"Mr Wilson, is there a reason why your hair has not begun to fade?"

Wilson scowled back. "It started to, Sir. But it has become worse again."

"And did none of you think to cancel the charm which was causing this? You have covered this in NEWT Charms, have you not?"

The seventh year looked embarrassed. "I didn't think, Sir."

"Evidently not. Potter," Snape beckoned. "You will come with me while I fix your mess. The rest of you, get to lunch."

Harry was dragged back down to the common room entrance. Snape began to cast spells around the wall concealing the door. One caused a yellow shadow to appear, a sort of thin mist. It hovered above the entrance at about six feet above the flagstones. Another wave of the wand and the shadow dissipated and Harry knew the spell had been disarmed.

"There is to be no more of this, Mr Potter." Snape said sternly. "Or I might require you to move into the Slytherin dorms instead of my isolation room."

The Slytherins would kill him if he had to sleep in the same room as them.

"Or I could always extend the grounding charm."

Then Snape would kill him.

"You have left no other little surprises, I hope?"

"No," Harry said, sullenly. Snape raised an eyebrow at him. "Really, I haven't. There'd be no point in me not telling you. You'll just blame me for anything that happens anyway."

The Slytherins who hadn't returned to their common room were looking almost normal now. There was only a subtle difference in dark hair, it was the blonds like Malfoy who still looked a bit seasick.

Harry didn't speak to anyone at lunch. The Slytherins weren't keen to talk and Snape was perfectly happy pretending Harry didn't exist. When Harry saw Professor McGonagall approaching them, he clambered off the bench to speak to her. Instantly, he had the strange sensation of being pulled backwards, as if he was standing on one of those flat escalators that muggles had in airports. It was pretty hard to keep his balance.

McGonagall smiled at the look of panic which flashed across Harry's features. Snape glanced up from his lunch too, irritated. Apparently Snape could tell when Harry moved too far away from him.

"Mr Potter," McGonagall said brusquely. "I have fashioned some questions which should allow you to cover the material you missed this morning. I will mark it for you if it is returned by curfew tonight." She handed Harry a few sheaves of parchment, which he gaped at. "Mr Weasley and Miss Granger were distressed this morning when you did not return. You might wish to have a word with them."

Harry looked over to the Gryffindor table, where his friends were watching with interest. He waved to them and they returned the gesture with vigour.

"Thanks, Professor," he said. "If Professor Snape ever lets me stop cleaning, I'll get right on it."

"Do not exaggerate, Potter." Snape drawled sarcastically from right behind Harry's ear. "I did not make you clean cauldrons all morning, you were doing a sterling job writing lines."

"Sir," Harry said a bit later as the hall was emptying. They were two of the last people at the Slytherin table. "Can I get hold of my schoolbag? I haven't got any quills or anything, and I need my transfiguration textbook to do this work."

Snape smirked, "That is an excellent idea, Potter. Let us go now."

Snape stood abruptly and Harry, who wasn't ready for the sudden move, was dragged up from his seat after him.

From the man's usual demeanour, Harry had expected Snape to ask another Gryffindor to bring it down. He definitely didn't think they would just go up and get it. Harry was forced to almost jog after the potions professor. The man didn't seem to take any notice of how far behind Harry was, and the boy kept tripping over his feet.

The Fat Lady sniffed haughtily when Snape gave the password to the Gryffindor common room. Harry was disconcerted when Snape moved to climb in through the portrait hole.

"Sir, wait, you're coming in?"

"You can hardly go by yourself, Potter."

"But, Sir! We could just shout for one of the others-"

Snape just gathered up his robes and stepped through. "Better to keep them on their toes." He disappeared.

"Neville is going to kill me." Harry muttered, hurrying to follow.

Sure enough, when they entered the fourth year boys' dormitory, Neville took one look from where he was sprawled on his four poster bed before emitting a loud squawk and falling off the other side.

He emerged seconds later, red faced. He muttered something unintelligible before disappearing down towards the common room.

Snape snorted.

Harry frowned up at him, "You don't have to be such a j- "he cut himself off quickly. "So mean to Neville. He tries his best. You should see him in Herbology."

Snape arched an eyebrow.

"Well, maybe you shouldn't. He always gets far worse whenever you're around."

"Potter, collect your bag before your house sends a rescue party in here."

Harry did so, stuffing some of his robes in there for good measure. He grinned, the Gryffindors, after their initial panic, had begun to look like they were plotting a revolution. It would probably be for the best if they left before his housemates barricaded the doors closed.

"What class are you supposed to be in now?"

Harry looked up at Snape, incredulous. Was the man making small talk?

"Defence with Professor Moody. We've been doing the same spell for about two weeks though, Sir, so I'm not missing much by not being there."

"And what is it you were doing? Surely it cannot take a whole class this long to grasp a fourth year concept? Even _Wingardium Leviosa_ can be learnt within two weeks."

"We aren't learning the spell, Professor." Harry laughed. "We're learning how to throw it off."

"What are you babbling about, Potter?"

"He's trying to get us to be able to throw off the imperius curse. He's always making us do stupid –"

"He's doing _what_!?" Snape snarled. "The imperius? That is a strong accusation, Potter. Even Moody is not that dense! The man was an auror for Merlin's sake."

"He said he had Dumbledore's permission." Harry said, taken aback by Snape's violent reaction. "He's just making us do dances and gymnastics and animal impressions and stuff. It's a bit embarrassing but he's doing it to everyone. And he's right isn't he, Sir? It's got to be better if we know how to throw it off."

"It is an Unforgivable Curse, Potter. The ministry doesn't care if you use it to make someone bake cakes, it is still illegal. I will have to speak to Dumbledore. The spell is far too easy to abuse. If it was me-"

"But you do teach potions." Harry pointed out. "I get that it's usually a pretty bad thing, but at least he's actually helping us with defence. It would be a bit dodgy if you started using it on students."

Snape ignored him. Harry just shrugged. Snape would talk to Dumbledore and the Headmaster would check everything was alright. That was what Dumbledore did, he fixed everything.

Snape cleared his throat as they descended through the green door into the dungeons.

"So, can anyone free themselves yet?"

Harry grinned, "I managed a couple of times the other day, but that's it for the Gryffindors." He waited and Snape grunted in response.

"Oh, and Neville managed it too."

Snape spun around, searching Harry's face to detect the lie there. Harry was delighted by the look of astonishment when Snape realised he had been telling the truth.

This lesson, Snape had him sit at the front desk, with his back to the class that came in. Harry had his Transfiguration work to do and it was a horrible mass of calculations. He chewed on the end of his quill absent-mindedly as he searched through his textbooks, trying to work out the next step of the problem.

"You do know that isn't a sugar quill, don't you?"

Harry turned to look at the first year along the table from him. The kid had one elbow resting on the bench with their hand cradling a pointed chin. They were neglecting their potion to stare intently at Harry.

"Uh, yeah. I didn't really notice." Harry mumbled. "I'm not actually eating it, you know."

"It's gross." The kid informed him.

"Thanks…"

They stared at each other for a moment.

"My bench partner's ill today. I've got to do this by myself and I'm rubbish at it."

Harry pointed out that it might help if they actually payed attention to the potion. The kid just shrugged.

"I'm no good anyway. It doesn't help if I watch it or not. Usually I just try to follow what someone else is doing." They pointed to the table behind. "I'm waiting for him to do something, I reckon I'm at about the same stage."

Harry blinked, "Are you joking?"

The child frowned, offended. "Look, forgive me if I don't take advice from someone who eats feathers-"

"Look, your potion is green, right? You see how there's steam coming off yours?"

He waited for the first year to compare the two.

"Right, the bloke behind us has a red potion, and it's not got any steam. See that?"

"It's not steaming, but it's the same colour. There can't be too much difference, mine is probably just a bit hotter."

"Temperature is important in Potions!" Harry blurted, "Like, very important. Have you noticed yours is beginning to spit, by the way? That isn't a good thing. It'd probably be for the best if you stopped that. And secondly, his potion is clearly red."

The kid sighed and turned the flame under his cauldron down a little. "Happy?"

"No…" Harry leaned over the desk to look at the instructions. "Look, it's supposed to be scarlet right now." He tapped the right line on the page.

"It is!" The kid said.

Harry stared for a moment, a thought forming slowly in his mind. It seemed pretty unlikely, but unless the kid was totally blind…

"Are you colour blind?" he asked, bluntly.

"I'm not blind!"

"I didn't say you were. I said colour blind, and it's different. It just means you can't see some colours the same way. Look, add an ounce of that powdered moonstone- that should calm it down a bit."

Harry watched carefully as it was measured out. He felt eyes on him suddenly and somehow knew Snape was watching. He didn't look up. Hopefully, he could fix the potion a little and then get back to those stupid mass and volume calculations for McGonagall.

"Right, now add four of those scales. Those green- sorry, the little ones. That's right. There you go." He smiled, "That's it red now. The colour doesn't matter for the rest of it, but if you want me to check, just ask."

The first year looked a bit irritated. "Why do you care anyway? I didn't ask you to look. And now you're telling me I'm blind or whatever, and I'm not!"

The kid had become a lot less friendly very quickly. A far cry from the child who had started the conversation.

Harry tried to smile disarmingly, but he felt a bit like Lockhart, so he stopped. "Look, honestly I didn't want to get blown up by that potion. And who knows, wizards made that creepy eye for Moody. Maybe they can do something about colour blindness too."

"Indeed they can."

Harry jumped right out of his seat.

"Professor Snape, I was just…"

"I know exactly what you were 'just' doing Potter. Fawley, thank Mr Potter."

"Thanks a bunch," The kid muttered.

"Since Mr Potter has rescued your potion, and saved your grade today from being 'Troll' standard. You can spend the time this evening which you would have spent rebrewing this potion, learning another."

"But Professor Snape!"

Snape held up his hand for silence. "I will show you the potion used to help with colour blindness, if that is really your problem. The potion only works for a few days, so I will supervise your brewing for two weeks."

"What if I'm not? What happens if I take it and I shouldn't?"

"Then you might need sunglasses for a couple of days. And you can brew this potion for the rest of the fortnight instead."

Fowley scowled, obviously not happy with either option.

"Now finish that, you only have twenty minutes left." Snape glanced at Harry as he stalked away to deal with a struggling Ravenclaw. "Potter, I want a word with you after class."

Harry rolled his eyes and settled back to his Transfiguration work. "It's not like I'm going anywhere."

"What was _that_ all about?" Snape demanded, arms folded tightly.

"What was what about?"

"Are _you_ colour blind?"

"No? Why would I be?"

Snape huffed. "Fowley is a Slytherin, Potter. I know you noticed that. What did you expect to get out of helping? You know I can't get rid of you until Monday. Helping one of my Slytherins isn't going to make me go easy on you."

"It wasn't me I was worried about! Honestly, I thought you might jump on the kid if they kept going like that. I was pretty happy that it didn't blow up all over me. I didn't see you anywhere near when it started to foam up!"

Harry was indignant. Snape always suspected him of having the worst motives. Was it so strange that Harry might just be being nice for the sake of it?

"Potter, I was watching. As a fourth year, you should be capable of calming a draught a little, and of correcting simple errors in potions. What's more, you saw a very similar mistake when you brewed this exact potion with Mr Longbottom. You did cope with it. What more did you expect me to do?"

Harry scowled. "I don't know. You didn't have to give the kid detention over it though."

"Detention?" Snape looked perplexed. "I didn't give Fowley detention."

"You did. You said they had to come tonight and for two weeks."

Snape sighed and looked up to the ceiling. "Yes, to Potions Club. Fowley is already a member. Not a very good member, but alright when brewing in a group."

"There's a club for potions?" Harry asked.

"Yes," the Professor said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "For the past ten years. It's on Tuesday's and Fridays."

"Oh, that's why I've never heard of it. Who'd want to do potions on a Friday night, you'd have to be mental."

Snape looked vicious.

"Sorry, Sir…"

"Your friend, Miss Granger, for one."

Harry was unimpressed, Hermione would go if the club was held at five o'clock on a Sunday morning.

"Mr Diggory, from the Hufflepuff quiddich team. I believe you have met? I believe he beat you in a quiddich match last year?"

Harry scowled, they had only been playing the Hufflepuff team because Malfoy had played up his injury to get out of the match.

"The Weasley twins come sometimes, on the rare occasion they can control themselves."

Harry gaped, "Fred and George go?"

"Indeed. They work on some… intriguing concoctions, to say the least."

Harry thought of the ton-tongue toffee's and privately agreed with Snape.

They both heard the sounds of quiet talking outside the door. Snape gestured for the Gryffindor to sit down, before sweeping out of the door to bring in the next class.


	3. Too Many Slytherins

Dinner was a quiet affair, considering. Ron and Hermione had run over to ask Snape if Harry could join them in the library to study with them until seven o'clock. Snape had made Harry explain to them about the spell as well. They both understood immediately. Apparently Hermione had read about the spell while doing research for Charms. Ron had a more practical knowledge, having experienced it first hand on many occasions.

"Fred and George practically lived under that spell for a whole year before they came to Hogwarts," he grinned. "We've got a detention tonight anyway. Hermione's mad about it, but it was her idea."

"It was _not_ my idea!" Hermione hit Ron on the arm with the back of her hand.

Harry felt Snape square his shoulders behind him.

"Who from?"

"McGonagall caught us on our way back through the portrait hole." Ron said. "We had the pot with us and everything. How about you, you had the cloak on, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but apparently Snape has about eight senses." Harry muttered quietly.

"And hearing is one of them." Snape said, in a loud voice. The Slytherins and Hufflepuffs who had been eavesdropping on the conversation sniggered.

The man pushed himself up off the bench and started walking out of the room. Harry said a hurried goodbye to his friends and started off after the professor.

He tripped and whacked his elbow hard on the stone floor.

Snape didn't notice. He kept walking away and though he did seem to feel some sort of resistance from the spell, he just kept going. Probably, he thought that Harry was just spending too long with his friends.

In reality, Harry was being dragged along the floor of the Great Hall. He tried to stand up but he instantly tripped again.

"Wait," he called, trying to catch his breath and avoid a Slytherin's foot at the same time.

"Professor!" Cedric Diggory had noticed what was happening from further down the Hufflepuff table. He stood up in front of Snape to stop him from moving. Diggory pointed out that Harry was still on the floor. Snape turned around, irritated, to see why.

"Potter, can you not just pay attention to where we are going?"

"Someone tied my shoes together!" Harry said, defensively.

Snape snorted, "You probably did it yourself, insisting on using the muggle way to do everything."

"My trainers have Velcro, not laces. Do you think they just appeared out of thin air?"

Snape raised an eyebrow. "That is rather how conjuring works, Mr Potter."

Harry glared up at the man while tying the laces over the top of the Velcro straps. He would have to work out how to get rid of the stupid things later on. He got to his feet and stalked out ahead of Snape who just shook his head and followed.

Once through the green door leading to the dungeons, Harry stopped and leaned against the wall, clutching his right arm and gritting his teeth. Snape looked at him with surprise.

"Are you injured?" he asked.

Harry scoffed, but was prevented from replying with a caustic remark by Snape continuing.

"You just stood up in the Hall, so I assumed you were fine." He frowned, "You might have said something before we got all the way down here, Potter. Now we will have to go all of the way back up to the Hospital Wing."

"Don't worry about it," Harry hissed.

Snape ignored him, reaching out and taking Harry's arm, one hand on his wrist and the other above the elbow. He twisted the boy's wrist so that his palm pointed at the ceiling and then down towards the floor. Then he bent the arm up so that Harry's fingers were moving towards his shoulder. Harry groaned from the pain of it, and twisted away so that Snape had to let go.

"Okay, it's broken," he said.

"And how would you know that?" Snape asked.

"I've done it before. I, uh, fell off a fence when I was eight."

It had been one of the many times Dudley and his gang had chased Harry at school. Harry had been backed into a corner and made a last ditch attempt at climbing over the eight foot fence which surrounded the playground. Dudley had grabbed hold of his ankle and tugged and a class helper walked up just in time to see Harry fall from the top.

The headmistress gave Harry a telling off for climbing about and called Aunt Petunia. His aunt was furious about being brought into school and with her there, there was no way Harry could blame Dudley for the incident. The Dursley's had shut him in his cupboard for a week for embarrassing them and it wasn't until Harry's teacher called them to say that he couldn't write that they felt the need to take him to the hospital.

"Potter!" Snape shook Harry by his good arm. "Wake up, we are going to see Madam Pomfrey."

Harry just nodded and trotted out through the dreaded green door after the professor. They had to wait as a group of Slytherins walked past them towards their common room.

"Only you would manage to break your arm from a simple trip," Snape grumbled. "How on earth do you survive all of your ridiculous escapades?"

"He _is_ the Boy Who Lived, Snape." Snape turned his sneer on the newcomer. It was Professor Moody, stomping towards them. "It seems to be what he does best. He's not the only one who makes a habit of wriggling out of sticky situations either."

Moody's eye jerked wildly, taking in Snape's expression and flicking quickly to where the man's wand was stowed inside his cloak.

"Indeed," Snape drew out the two syllables. "Well Moody, not all of us have the tenacity required to persist when a fight is obviously lost."

His own dark eyes lingered pointedly over Mad Eye's scarred face and dropped down to take in the man's stump of a leg as well. Moody fumbled a little as he took a long swig from his hipflask. Snape's lip curled in distaste.

"Some of us believe in things like bravery and loyalty. Potter here can tell you about that." Moody said gruffly, stomping away towards the marble staircase.

Snape made a noise deep in his throat which Harry couldn't identify.

"Do hurry up, Potter."

Harry gulped as a circle of angry eyes surrounded him. He was boxed in, his every move scrutinised. He kept his head bent to look at the parchment before him, trying to ignore them.

He couldn't believe Snape had abandoned him here. After watching him all day, the old bat had just up and left him! It would have been alright if the man hadn't decided it would be best to leave Harry under supervision.

Which meant that he had left the Gryffindor in the Slytherin common room. Which was full of Slytherins. All of them looked like they wanted to kill him.

So what if the man had left orders that Harry couldn't be attacked? What were his two bodyguards supposed to do if the room turned on him? What if the two prefects joined in?

Harry glanced up again, as he had been doing every minute or so for the last hellish hour. Instantly the four people who had been watching him looked away, feigning disinterest. He could see them all, together in little groups, plotting revenge. They were all speaking in low voices, gathered around sheets of parchment.

"Potter, you are making a mess."

It was the Slytherin prefect with the red hair. The boy was frowning at the puddle of ink which had formed while Harry had been looking around the room. Harry hurried to wipe it up with his sleeve and the older boy watched him with disgust.

The girl looked up from where she was trying to transfigure a Knut into a pair of earrings. Every time she got one as she liked it, she had to try and change the other to match and she was getting more and more frustrated with trying to get them identical.

"They aren't going to do anything, they're all in their study groups. And anyway, the Professor threatened to put anyone who causes trouble in the same room as you until Monday. That's enough to put anybody off."

Harry rolled his eyes, "You're hilarious. And I'm not worried."

The girl stretched her hands up through her hair, pulling it back behind her shoulders, out of the way. "So you won't mind if Blackfort and I go for a little stroll around the dungeons, then?"

Harry glanced around and saw that a few people had looked up with interest when she said that. "Uh, Snape might not like it if you disappeared off. He did say you had to stay here. What if I decide to start a riot or something?"

"It would not be you starting the riot, Potter." Blackfort said. "But don't worry, we will be here to protect you from the big, bad Slytherins."

"It's usually the little ones you have to look out for."

The three of them jumped, Harry would have fallen off the sofa if Blackfort next to him hadn't reached over to steady him.

"Sir?" The girl said, her voice surprisingly steady.

Professor Snape smirked down at them, "Don't you agree? It's all well and good to fill our quiddich team with our muscle, but it's the brains behind it all that you have to watch out for."

"Not when your entire game plan is 'flatten the other team'" Harry muttered.

Snape had the attention of the room now that his house had realised he was standing there. A lot of them stood up out of respect, waiting to see if he had anything to say to them.

"Good evening, I hope you are all getting on with your studying for today." He was scanning the room, eyes resting on certain students. A group of third year girls went bright red and tried to unobtrusively hide a packet of Exploding Snap cards under their Charms homework. "Potions Club is starting in a few minutes. If you are coming, then get a move on. Potter, get up."

"What? Why do I have to go?"

"Because you still owe me two copies of those potion instructions from this morning, because your two minders are coming and most importantly, because I am telling you to and we teachers have a little thing called 'authority'."

Harry scowled and got up, collecting his work for McGonagall into a messy pile. He had already completed the stuff which Professor Sprout had sent down with one of her Hufflepuffs in fourth period, and now he was back to the same problems he had been stuck on all afternoon. And now there were huge smudges of ink all over it too.

Snape paused for a moment before they left and brandished his wand. There were groans of dismay as a pack of cards soared gently through the air and into Snape's outstretched hand. Harry felt a bit sorry for the girls, McGonagall would never have said anything if they had been Gryffindors.

'Potions Club' looked more interesting than Harry had expected, although that wasn't saying much. Instead of Snape stalking around the room, insulting people, he _wandered_ around insulting people. It was a subtle change, but there was a different atmosphere to it all.

The Weasley twins were there, and they were taking the brunt of Snape's irritation. Harry thought they might be doing it on purpose, to distract the man from picking away at Harry, which was what tended to happen whenever the man walked past.

The twins were brewing some sort of cream coloured paste, and they were refusing to tell Snape what its effects were going to be. They had a bag with them as well with a huge pile of biscuits sealed inside. Snape was examining the remains of the ingredients they had already put in, and one of the twins passed him the method which they were writing with meticulous care. The other twin was busy measuring sugar out onto the most precise scale in the dungeon.

Harry was looking around the room to see what everyone else was up to and caught the eye of Cedric Diggory at the bench behind him.

"How's it going, Harry?" The Hufflepuff smiled. "Still in one piece?"

"Just about." Harry replied a bit stiffly. "Thanks for earlier by the way."

There was an awkward silence and Diggory calmly added another ingredient to his potion.

"I'm surprised so many people are here." Harry said when the other boy looked back up.

"Your friend Granger is usually here too, but I think she's got a detention for whatever you guys did to the Slytherins. She was in the library sorting books at top speed, and Weasley was with her. Poor kid looked quite lost."

Harry felt bad for his friends, but it was to be expected that if Harry had been caught then the others would be implicated too. It was quite a funny idea too; Hermione would be annoyed because she would be around all these people who were studying and she wasn't allowed to, and Ron was terrible at finding anything in the library to begin with.

"They'll kill each other by the end of the night." Harry said, Cedric grinned back at him.

One of the older Slytherins walked down the middle aisle to speak to Snape, who looked up from the Weasley's cauldron reluctantly.

"What is it?"

"Sir, I'm supposed to Speak with Professor McGonagall about something, can I go up now? I've tidied everything away already."

"Well you'd be useless if I made you stay here then, go on."

The girl smiled and left. Harry remembered that his Transfiguration work was due in about half an hour and sprinted out after her, ignoring Snape's shout for him to come back.

"Wait up!" he shouted to her. She turned around with an irritated look.

"What is it, Potter? I'm busy."

"Sorry, It's just I heard you were going to see McGonagall, and I'm supposed to hand this in. And, well, I can't exactly get out of the dungeons at the moment. Please?"

The girl stared at him for a moment, trying to work out what he had blurted out. Then her eyes slid to the handful of scrunched up papers Harry was holding up. She reached out slowly and took hold of them between her forefinger and thumb.

"I'll take them away." She said, holding them as far away from her robes as possible.

"Thank you." Harry said, sincerely. The girl walked around the corner with ther nose pointed up in the air.

"Potter?"

"Yeah?" Harry turned around. Blackfort, the Slytherin from earlier was jogging towards him.

"Come on back. The Professor's in a right mood because you disappeared like that. He said I'd find you here."

"Yeah, he seems to have some crazy bat sense going on."

"Yeah, well he also said that if you didn't come I could use any minor jinxes I want to convince you to get back there. So get a move on or I might have a practice of a good tap-dancing one I came across the other day."

Harry rolled his eyes, fairly sure it was an empty threat.

Snape ignored Harry when he came back into the room, instead he was focussed on helping Fowley with his potion. The Slytherin looked defensive and a little petulant, but the potion seemed to be going pretty well. At least they didn't seem to be fighting, Harry got the definite impression that the two didn't get on very well.

Snape seemed to guide the child through the difficult step they were on and called one of the prefects over to keep an eye on it.

He stalked up to the front of the room.

"Come."

Harry did, hurrying through to the man's office. Snape waited for him to enter the room first and then shut the door firmly behind himself.

"Sit." Snape pointed to the hardwood chair in front of his desk. Snape stood with his arms folded.

"Well?"

"What?"

"Potter, how is it you become confused even when I use words even a dog could understand? Why did you think it would be appropriate to disappear without my permission?"

Harry blinked, "I was literally just down the corridor. You knew where I was."

"Yes, I knew you chased one of my students out of the room and that you then stayed where you were. How was I to know you hadn't tried to attack her, or been attacked yourself."

Harry frowned, "I don't go around picking fights with everyone, you know."

"Do you remember breaking your arm this afternoon? I take it you did not intend to do that to yourself. You really do have concept of self-preservation, do you?"

Harry rolled his eyes. Snape's eyes narrowed dangerously across from him.

"And there is this matter of how disrespectful you are being. It is not acceptable, do you understand? You will remain here until I come to escort you back to your room."

Harry suppressed a sigh of annoyance. "And what d'you want me to do?"

Snape stared at him for a moment. "You can write me an essay."

Oh great, Harry thought, more potions work.

"I want you to write three feet on 'the smoke inside a remembrall'."

"What?"

"Do you have any idea how annoying it is to have to repeat everything, Potter? You have about an hour and a half until I return." Snape took out everything Harry would need to write. He took out his wand and extended a side table so it was at the right height for the boy to use.

"And Potter, if you gnaw on that quill like you do your own, you are paying for a new set."

Snape left.

Harry looked at the door blankly, then stared down at the yellowed page in front of him. He didn't have the first idea what to write. He knew absolutely nothing about remembralls. He groaned and let his head thud into the desk.


	4. Slytherin Bullies

"For Merlin's sake."

Harry pulled his pillow over his head. Why did he always have to be woken up so rudely? He never had the chance to just sleep as long as he wanted.

"Oof-"

Harry sat bolt upright to try to dislodge the heavy weight which had suddenly landed itself on his chest.

It was a book.

Harry grabbed his glasses of the bedside table, settling them onto his nose to look at the thing. _Essential Household Spells for the Modern Witch._ The book looked about a hundred years old. Harry sneezed from the dust, then looked up to see Snape standing in the doorway with his arms crossed.

"Ouch." Harry said.

Snape rolled his eyes. "You are fine. As I anticipated, you are also not yet _up_. I want you outside my office in forty minutes. Put that book in your bag as well, you will be needing it."

"Why?" Harry looked at the book without much optimism. "I'm not a witch or… a hundred and twenty. And I don't have a house."

"You do however have the need to learn many of the spells which are mentioned in that book. Those are spells usually taught to children by their parents. I expect most of my Slytherins and all of your friends with wizarding blood already know most of these. This book uses particularly simple words. Even you should be able to make a couple of the spells work before Monday."

"Huh?"

"Just get up. Bring your bag with you."

Snape left and Harry checked his watch. It was twenty past six! He idly wondered whether he could get away with staying in bed for another ten minutes. Reluctantly, he realised that he could probably do with having a shower, so he rolled out of bed.

After checking that there was some movement in the Slytherin common room, Severus Snape walked up to his office door. He could see Potter was already waiting outside and a flick of his wand told him that the boy was a couple of minutes early. The boy's hair was dripping slightly down the back of his neck.

"You might have taken a moment or two to care for your appearance, then you might not appear so scruffy for once."

Potter smooth down the crumpled material of his robe, looking a little contrite. He followed his professor's gaze to run a hand through his hair.

"It's going to dry itself before the end of breakfast." He said defensively, wiping his damp hand.

Snape just frowned and made a jabbing motion with his wand. Harry's hair warmed to an almost uncomfortable level, before cooling again.

"You can start with that spell," he said. "And don't let me see you in such a state again."

At breakfast, the two sixth year prefects spoke to him about the Potion's Club. Harry was careful with what he said due to the fact Snape was very obviously listening in to the conversation. Harry suspected that the only reason Blackfort and his girlfriend were even talking to him was because Snape had asked them to at some point.

The couple were working on a potion together, apparently they were partners on some project in Snape's NEWT class. Harry didn't quite understand it, but apparently they were trying to work out if there was a way to miss out some of the stages involved in brewing the _Elixir to Induce Euphoria_.

He didn't know much about the potion, and especially not anything about the technique, so most of the conversation went straight over his head.

"Hey, Potter." Harry turned around in his seat to see Ernie MacMillan calling to him. The boy pointed at the floor beneath the Slytherin bench.

"That's your wand isn't it?"

It was.

Harry dived under the seat instantly to get it, accidentally upsetting Snape's coffee – and Snape for that matter. The stupid thing had fallen out of his pocket again.

"Constant vigilance!" Somebody shouted, nearby. Harry jumped out of shock and smacked his head off the underside of the seat. Groaning, he re-emerged to see Moody standing in the aisle above him, and Snape nursing what seemed to be a scalded hand.

" _Professor_ Moody," Snape growled. "In the future could you please keep your theatrical mantras quiet until after I have had the opportunity to finish my coffee?"

"That would be counterproductive, Snape, don't you think? Up you come, sonny."

Harry didn't have the chance to refuse as Moody bent down and dragged him up by the arm. Gingerly feeling the bump on his head, Harry sat back down behind his pile of toast. Snape stared at Moody as the man took a swig from his flask, before turning away with a look of disgust.

The smell of whatever it was drifted across to Harry as the man flipped it closed. Harry recognised it. Before he had thought it must be alcohol and knew that other students thought so too, Seamus and Dean had joked about nicking it earlier in the term- back before they had realised quite how paranoid the Professor was.

But it didn't smell like any alcohol Harry knew of and it _definitely_ wasn't pumpkin juice.

Moody stomped up to get his own breakfast, and after a second Harry shrugged and span back around to face the table. A couple of seats down, Malfoy was trying to get Goyle to read something off the back of a leaflet. The big Slytherin was mouthing the words, slowly, as he made his way through the sentence. For some reason, that made Harry think about the flask again. But whatever the link was, Harry couldn't think of it this early in the morning.

Harry put his wand down next to his plate. "I really need to stop losing you."

In his peripheral vision, Harry saw Snape raise an eyebrow.

"You lose your wand often, Potter? That's remarkably careless, even for you."

"Well, last time it got nicked. It disappeared at the quiddich world cup this summer. Somebody used it to conjure the dark mark, but then they dropped it, so I got it back."

Snape stared at him for a full minute. He opened his mouth about four times, about to say something but closed it each time.

"But that's the only time. Oh, apart from when Riddle stole it in the Chamber of Secrets. But it wasn't really lost then, he just had it."

"Potter, shut up," said Blackfort from the other side of the table. The boy was watching his head of house with a slight smile though, it wasn't often that the man was lost for words.

Harry noticed that Snape poured himself an extra coffee. It must have been a stressful morning for the man.

"Mr Potter!"

For what felt like the hundredth time already that morning, Harry looked around to see who was calling his name. It took Snape a couple of seconds longer to remember to wait but Harry had braced himself for being pulled along.

It was McGonagall. She didn't look happy.

"Minerva, to what do we owe the pleasure?" Snape strode back towards them, looking mildly irritated. Luckily mildly irritated was slightly less than usual.

"Potter, I did tell you yesterday to have that work to me by curfew. I might even have found it acceptable if you had found me first thing this morning. But here you are, and no sign of anything."

Harry's thoughts raced. He had sent the work up to her. He had spent so long doing the stuff, surely she had it?

"I asked someone else to bring it up to you," he spluttered.

"And who would that be?"

"I don't know," Harry frowned. "Some Slytherin girl, she said she was going to see you last night."

"Miss Lyss?" McGonagall looked to Snape for confirmation and the man shrugged. "She was the last Slytherin I spoke to last night. I asked her if she had been asked to bring anything to me and she denied it."

"Maybe it wasn't her then…"

"The girl who you chased out of my Potions class last night was Miss Lyss," Snape said to Harry.

"Lyss insisted that she had no such errand. I specifically asked her because it was so close to curfew."

"I did do it!" Harry maintained. "Sir, you must have seen me working on it. I was doing it all afternoon."

"I did not look, Potter." Snape said. "I saw it was incomplete in the afternoon. I have no idea if you finished it, or if you actually gave it to my student. Either way, it sounds like you will have to redo the work."

"Do it again?" Harry whined. "It took me ages to do it the first time! I can't even remember how to work it all out."

"Stop being such a brat." Snape folded his arms. "If the work is lost, then of course you have to do it again. And if you cannot remember the calculations _the next day_ , how do you expect to remember them in your OWLs? It will do you good to have the practice."

McGonagall nodded. "Perhaps if you brought Mr Potter to the staff meeting this afternoon, he could do his work then. I would be able to mark it straight afterwards."

Snape pulled a face, "I see no reason to inflict Potter's presence on the entire staff. Not to mention we will be discussing confidential information, Potter has no right to hear that."

McGonagall waved a hand dismissively, "We can put him in a sound bubble, Filius is an expert after all. You can't read lips, can you, Potter?"

"No…"

"There you go, problem averted. Don't cause any trouble, Potter."

With those parting words, McGonagall swept off towards the Grand Staircase.

Snape steered Harry away, muttering.

Along with the first potions class there arrived a pile of work from Professor Flitwick. The work was simple enough, basically he had to answer questions on Banishing charms based on the right chapter of his textbook. The Ravenclaw who had brought it down had instructions to return it at morning break, so Harry had to hurry to get all of his answers down. Luckily Snape didn't have his class doing anything too loud.

Harry didn't pay much attention to the second year class which came in next, that is until Snape started calling the register and began demanding to know where Fowley was. Harry looked up, surprised to see that the bench next to him was empty. Nobody seemed to know, but a Ravenclaw boy suggested the Slytherin might be in the hospital wing. Snape dismissed the idea.

"They are probably just late. Fowley does not believe in punctuality."

When the lesson was about half way through, Harry got permission off an irritated Snape to go to the bathroom. The man looked annoyed at having to let him out, but as the alternative was escorting the boy at lunch, he really had no option.

Expecting the corridors to be deserted, Harry was surprised when he heard raised voices coming from the boy's bathroom.

"Let me out! I've got to get to class. The Professor is going to kill me as it is-"

"What, so you can run away and whine to your Housemaster that we've been 'calling you names'? Not a chance. We're not going anywhere and neither are you."

Harry recognised Fowley's voice. Why was it Slytherins were always in the middle of any trouble that was to be had? He drew his wand cautiously before opening the door, glad that he had brought it with him.

Just inside the door were three Ravenclaw students who were blocking his way in. More importantly, they were blocking Fowley's way out. Harry didn't recognise the other students, but they looked younger than him, so he guessed they must be third years.

Everyone turned to look at him as he entered. The Ravenclaw who seemed to be in charge was a slight boy with spiked up hair. He nodded to Harry in a friendly way.

"Hello, Potter. We're just teaching this slimy snake a lesson in manners. _She's_ not got any." Fowley flinched.

Harry tried to keep his expression neutral, but he was concerned for the second year. The kid tried to hide it, but there were tears rolling slowly down their face. The three boys did notice, and the two bigger ones jeered.

"What did they do?" Harry asked, trying to work out if there was a way to get hold of a teacher before he lost his temper and started Cursing them. In the dungeons they were far away from most teachers, Snape was closest and Harry couldn't think of a way to get the man's attention.

"She's in our bathroom, of course," the boy said. "And if _she's_ so determined to not be a boy, then she shouldn't be allowed in here."

"Professor McGonagall said I'm allowed to use either of the bathrooms, so it's mine too. And I'm not a girl!" Fowley, took a step forward with their fists clenched. A second later, the kid had to take two back as the Ravenclaws responded to the challenge. One of the third years cracked their knuckles in a menacing way.

"You're offending us by being here." The boy spat on the floor in front of Fowley.

Fowley pulled out a wand, hands shaking. "Let me out of here."

The Ravenclaws howled with laughter, bringing their wands out too.

"What do you think you're gonna do?" One of the bigger boys asked. "Cast a Cheering Charm on us?"

Fowley swallowed nervously, "I bet I know better spells than you do! My mum's been teaching me magic since I was about three."

"Ooh, going to use Mummy's spells are you? Was Mummy a death eater? Was it her fault you'r-"

"That's enough." Harry said, stepping into the room and letting the door close behind him. The Ravenclaws spun around at this new threat, bunching together. Harry pushed past them so he could stand beside Fowley.

"Fowley said McGonagall's okay with them being in here, so what's it to you? It doesn't hurt you if someone uses the guy's bathroom. If it was a girl who was in here you wouldn't attack them! For Ravenclaws you're being complete idiots."

The boy in front went pale in anger, making a stark contrast to his dark hair. "You say that again, Potter..."

"And what? You think you know so many spells as a third year? You know my name because of what I've done. I don't even know your name, what does that tell you? It tells _me_ that you're nothing to worry about and you'd better get out of here before I decide to _make_ you leave."

The third year's face contorted in fury. Harry thought he could see the boy's jaws grinding together from where he stood.

"You're going to pay for that comment, Potter. Obviously all that time you've spent with those Snakes is turning you into one."

Harry rolled his eyes, "You know, that was more annoying two years ago. If you payed any attention, you would have noticed that the Slytherins all hate me- I did turn them all pink yesterday, you know. Do try to come up with an original insult."

Harry was very aware that he was playing for time, and they were already close to a fight, surely somebody would turn up soon? Even another Slytherin would have been alright, as long as he wasn't outnumbered three to one in a wand-fight.

"Then why the hell are you standing with him?"

"Because you have no bloody right to attack _anyone_ somewhere they should be safe, you asshole."

This seemed too much for the Ravenclaw and he drew his wand to cast a spell.

Harry thought quickly, he needed a spell which would hopefully scare the Ravenclaws away from a fight. He didn't think he could keep up a battle on his own, and it was unlikely that Fowley would know any decent shielding spells yet.

" _Expecto Patronum_!" Prongs burst out from the tip of Harry's wand and as he had hoped, charged towards the boys.

The three of them startled back a few steps. The boy closest to Harry decided to try his hand at a hex, which was aimed surprisingly well towards the Slytherin. Harry was so focussed on maintaining the Patronus, that he couldn't cast the counter. One look at Fowley told him that the child didn't know what to do either. Harry was already pushing Fowley out of the way when Prongs leapt to the side and swallowed the curse whole. The stag then lowered his head, pawed at the tiled floor, and charged.

The three boys didn't waste any time and ran for it, pushing each other to be the first through the door before the stag could reach them. As the last Ravenclaw stumbled out, Prongs exploded into a fine silver mist, fading fast.

Harry looked down at Fowley who was lying on the floor- where Harry had pushed them. If anything the kid was crying more now.

Harry was suddenly worried in case the bullies had hurt Fowley before Harry had got there, or what if one of them had cast a spell without him noticing? What if Harry had hurt Fowley most when they were knocked over?

"Are you hurt? Can I help-?"

The door opened again and Snape appeared in the doorway. His first impression was of Harry standing over the younger student with his wand still drawn. The second thing he noticed was the child sobbing.

"Potter." Snape growled.

In an instant, Snape had disarmed Harry and with quick strides was beside the teenager, grabbing him tightly by the arm.

Harry was speechless, totally baffled about where to begin. His mind was still reeling from the confrontation with the Ravenclaws, he couldn't process what Snape being here meant.

"Sir-"

"Potter, get out. I don't want to listen to you now."

"But-"

"Out!"

Snape pushed him towards the door and Harry hurried out.

Once the door closed behind him, Harry didn't know what to do. Snape had made it clear that he didn't want to see him, and at some point the man would want to leave the bathroom. Harry thought about waiting just around one of the corners, in case the man needed help in getting Fowley somewhere. Then he remembered that the Ravenclaw students would be nearby and it would be unwise to run into them again so soon. _Especially_ not while Snape still had his wand.

That left the Potions Classroom, which would probably be filled with startled second years; waiting outside Snape's office, where he was highly likely to run into Slytherin students in his year; or the room where he had been sleeping.

Suddenly he was very aware of why he had headed to the bathroom in the first place and decided it would probably be best to go to his own room (and its adjoining bathroom). Snape would be able to find him whenever he wanted anyway, and if the man _really_ didn't want to see him, then Harry would be far enough out of the way to avoid his teacher's wrath.

There were shuffling noises in the room behind him and Harry hastened away, deeper into the dungeons.


	5. Confrontations

Professor Snape was not sure quite _what_ had happened to the Fowley child, but he was determined to find out. He had checked that Fowley had no injuries, before hauling them to their feet and demanding an explanation.

Unfortunately, it wasn't as easy as that.

Fowley had been crying since he had arrived in the bathroom, and the child didn't show any signs of stopping soon. They seemed to be struggling to get words out. Snape thought about bringing Fowley down to his office, but he could tell that Potter was still outside the door and he did not want to make anything worse with the Second year.

Snape watched the child trying to get a grip, unsure of what to do. Crying children were not usually part of his remit.

"Do you feel able to leave?" He asked, when Fowley seemed to actually be breathing properly.

"Y'ssir" Fowley brought up an arm, prepared to wipe their nose on a grimy sleeve. At the last moment, they caught Snape's disgusted expression and fished a worse-looking handkerchief out of a pocket instead.

Snape rolled his eyes so that the Slytherin couldn't see him. He felt a small mental pull as Potter seemed to walk down the corridor which led to the Common room and his quarters. Relieved, he tried to hurry the small child towards his office.

Snape moved forebodingly through the corridors, as always. He sent a small group of third years scattering as he led Fowley around a corner. The three boys looked terrified at the sight of him, no doubt they thought he had been the one to make Fowley so upset.

"Don't you have work to do?" He snapped. They disappeared up a set of stairs. Fowley got perceptibly closer to him.

"Sir, I'm really sorry about missing class. I didn't mean to."

"We will speak in my office."

Snape thought he heard a gulp from behind him. The little fool ought to know that the Professor was reasonable, by now. Hadn't he done his best to help the child since they were sorted into his house? He _had_ been irritated with the child for missing the beginning of class. But, if there was a good reason, or they had been detained by Potter, that was another matter entirely.

He held his office door open for Fowley to enter ahead of him. He was glad that he had had the foresight to give his class permission to leave if the bell rang while he was absent.

Fowley settled into the uncomfortable chair Snape kept for students and looked anxiously up at the professor.

"Can I get you anything?" Snape asked, pouring a glass of water for himself. The child just stared at him with wide eyes, so Snape set another glass in front of them.

"Tell me what happened."

Something about it being an order, rather than a question, spurred the Slytherin into speech.

"I was just trying to go to the bathroom before class, I didn't mean to be late, Sir."

"When I left my classroom, it was halfway through the period. Were you late already?"

"No, Sir. I was first out of Charms."

Snape picked out a piece of scrap parchment from a pile on his desk, he started scratching out what Fowley was saying.

"So you were in the bathroom. How did Mr Potter come to be involved?"

"What do you mean, Sir? He just came in."

"Fowley, Mr Potter cast some spell while he was in the bathroom, did he not?"

The child frowned, "He conjured some shiny deer thing with horns."

"That would be a patronus charm." Snape explained. "Why?"

"I don't know, ask him."

Snape sighed. "Was he using it to attack you? You were on the ground when I came in."

"No, Sir. He just pushed me over."

"He pushed you?" Snape demanded, standing up. He would show Potter that he did not tolerate bullying in any form. The brat was turning out just like his father. Did Snape really have to keep the boy within his sights constantly to make sure he did not get up to any mischief?

"It's not a big deal, Professor." Fowley stood up too, waving his hands. "Honestly, it doesn't matter."

"Of course it matters. He will not be getting away with this. He is obviously targeting my students and I will not allow it to continue. This is the perfect time to stamp out this sort of behaviour."

Snape strode towards the door, but stopped as he felt a pull on his sleeve. He turned to see Fowley's eyes fill up again with tears.

"Potter was trying to help me, Sir, honestly. He pushed me to make me get out of the way, so he could get in front of me."

"He pushed you out of his way?"

"No!" Fowley shouted, frustrated. Snape's eyes narrowed impatiently, but Fowley forged ahead.

"He was trying to stop some boys, that's all! He pushed me so I wouldn't get hit by a spell."

"Other boys? Where on earth did they come from?"

"They were in the bathroom. They said I shouldn't be there but they wouldn't let me leave. That's why I was there so long."

"Who were they?"

"I- I don't know, Sir."

"You don't know."

"No, Sir."

"What did they look like?" Snape asked.

"I don't know, Sir."

Snape considered the child carefully, folding his arms.

"So, you went to the bathroom first thing after Charms. Somehow you were there for all of break, then 'some boys' turned up and prevented you from coming to my class before Mr Potter appeared to save the day. Oh, and he pushed you to the floor for your own good. Is that all right?"

Fowley blinked, swallowing hard.

"Yes?"

"Tidy yourself up and go to lunch." Snape said, giving up. Hopefully Potter would be more forthcoming about the situation although he doubted it.

"I want all Slytherins in the common room by half an hour into the lunch break. I have told the rest of your year, please make sure the message is passed on to the prefects. Tell them they are responsible for making sure everyone is present."

"Where are you going?"

Snape raised an eyebrow at the child. It was an uncharacteristically forward question.

"Sorry, Sir." Fowley's head ducked in embarrassment.

"I am going to have a talk with Mr Potter. He is currently hiding in his room. Obviously he feels he has something to hide." Or hide from, he thought sourly.

"He really was just trying to help."

"Just try to get to lunch safely."

Potter was still in the Slytherin isolation room, so Snape checked in on his class first. He got there in time to see one of his Slytherin girls drop some Wrigglesap down a classmate's neck. The bell rang and he gave her a detention. He made sure the Slytherins knew where he wanted them to be, before leaving them to tidy up.

Harry sat up on his bed when he heard the knock at his door. Before he could say anything, Snape had come in and was standing over him.

"Is Fowley okay?" Harry asked, concern for the second year overriding the intimidating presence of the professor.

Snape just glared down at him.

"Sir?"

"Fowley is fine, Potter." One of the muscles in the man's jaw stood out as he bit back some comment.

"Tell me what you were doing in the bathroom."

"Well, I needed to… go, you know."

Snape groaned. "Why is it that everyone is so determined to misunderstand everything I say? I know why you went to the bathroom. What happened with Fowley?"

"Oh." Harry took a deep breath and explained everything to the Professor. The man's expression softened somewhat as he went on.

"…and then I turned back around to help Fowley up, but they were crying too much. And then you came in, Sir."

Snape was silent for a minute, obviously taking everything in. The boy's story seemed to agree with the one he had heard earlier from Fowley. Potter had even provided some more concrete details about the other boys involved. Snape hadn't been convinced that Fowley had not invented them as a way to not rat out Potter.

"Third year Ravenclaws, you said?" Snape confirmed, he remembered seeing some students in the corridor earlier. Of course, it was possible that Potter had seen them too.

"I think so, sir. Three of them."

"Come with me."

Harry was surprised by the sudden change in Snape's attitude, he had to scramble to follow the Professor. He was led through the corridors to the man's office, where he was shown to the student seat.

Snape tapped something on the desk with his wand and instantly two plates of food appeared. He began to eat his pastry quickly. He was halfway through before he realised that Potter had not even picked up his fork.

"Get on with it, boy. We don't have all day."

Harry looked up, surprised. In all honesty, he hadn't expected Snape to make sure he ate lunch. He reached for the cutlery cautiously, watching Snape all the while in case he changed his mind.

Snape snorted, and looked back at his own plate.

When they had both finished, about five minutes later, Snape banished both plates with a wave of his wand.

"What do you understand about Fowley?"

"Sir?"

"Fowley. The first time I saw you both speak was in that Potions lesson yesterday. You seemed to have no idea that they were a Slytherin or what their name was, yet I have not once heard you refer to them with any male or female pronouns. What is your explanation for that?"

"Well I'm not a total jerk, you know."

"Very well, how did you know that Fowley identifies as gender neutral?"

"I didn't," Harry caught the exasperated look on the professor's face and jumped in before the man started shouting.

"Ginny Weasley mentioned it, Sir. Ron said something about the kid in the corridor once and Ginny was with us. She just said that the kid didn't like being called 'he' or 'she' or anything. She said the kid preferred 'they' and stuff. Ron didn't really understand but she kept on at him until he did." Harry shrugged, "I recognised them, that's all."

"Well, Miss Weasley was right. That is what Fowley prefers, and we do our best to accommodate. Unfortunately, some of our students are totally intolerant. We do our best, but Fowley never comes forwards, even if they are being targeted."

Harry nodded, he understood what that was like. Once you got used to not asking for help, it was hard to accept it when it was offered.

Snape stood up, stretching as he did. He reached into one of his pockets and drew Harry's wand. He passed it back over the table.

"Here, you may have this back. Your story seems to match Fowley's, be assured I will be looking into the matter."

"Thanks." Harry muttered, taking his wand back and carefully putting it back in his pocket.

"I have called a meeting with my house, you might as well come. It will keep you out of mischief until your next lesson."

The Slytherin common room fell into silence as its Housemaster entered the room. Snape beckoned the prefects forwards.

"Is everyone here?" Snape asked them.

Blackwood nodded, "Yes, Sir. It took us longest to find Govan, she was up in the Owlery, so we got her lunch down here." He gestured to a small girl who was eating a pile of sandwiches at a desk by the side of the room. The girl went red and moved to put the food down but Snape waved at her to keep eating.

"I am here to ask you all about Professor Moody. What you say here will stay in this room, unless it is necessary for me to bring it to the headmaster's attention. Do you all understand that?"

"Yes, Professor."

Harry was impressed by the chorus from the Slytherins. Obviously they were well used to the man.

"Has anybody noticed anything strange about him, or his teaching?"

Most of the first few years looked confused, but a lot of the older ones were looking at each other.

"He's been showing our class the unforgivables." Hocking, the seventh year girl prefect, said. "When we asked, he said he had permission from Dumbledore, but then he started using the imperius on us."

Others were nodding too. Snape asked for a show of hands to see who had been under the imperius curse, and everyone fourth year and up who was in the Defence classes raised their hand.

"Is there anything else I need to know? What is he teaching your class?" Snape walked up to a third year.

"Defence is pretty normal," the girl said. "He's not quite as good as Professor Lupin was, but he doesn't take any."

The first and second years seemed to be having fairly normal lessons too.

"But he's always drinking out of that flask of his," said one first year. "Shouldn't you be worried if he's drinking while teaching?"

"It's not alcohol." Harry said before he could think about it. Everyone turned to look at him and he took a step back from the attention. Snape walked right up to him though, so he couldn't retreat.

"Do you know what it is?"

"Not really." Harry said, leaning back slightly. "It smells disgusting, whatever it is. Like the worst tasting potion you could imagine."

Snape frowned. "How often does he drink from it?"

Harry shrugged, "At least once a lesson, he always drinks loads of it at once too, which is a bit weird. Though I guess it does smell bad enough. Maybe it's some sort of medicine."

"Professor?"

Snape turned around to look down at Theodore Nott who had stepped forward from where he had been sitting with Malfoy and his goons.

"He really hates us, Sir. You know, those of us whose parents he – uh- knows."

Malfoy and his friends nodded, along with not a few from the other years.

One seventh year boy frowned, "Actually, sir, he's been quite nice to me and Kelda."

"Mr Lestrange?"

"He gives us house points all the time, and he didn't give me a detention when I set fire to my desk in his lesson."

"He gave me detention for taking the wrong textbook out of my bag." Nott retorted. "He obviously hates some of us."

The bell rang for the end of lunch and the Slytherins waited for Snape's signal before grabbing their bags and rushing out of the room. The fifth years had a free period and waved goodbye lazily to their housemates. Then Snape barked at them and they too scrambled to get to their bags and set some work out onto the common room desks.

Harry felt very odd sitting in his usual potions seat with Ron next to him. He was having problems focussing on what Snape was saying after working so hard the last couple of days to tune out the Professor's voice. At the same time, he was trying to explain to Ron, and Hermione at the desk behind, about the strange things Moody was doing.

Twice, Snape took housepoints from Harry, before the boy settled down to do some writing. Ten minutes later, as Snape was demonstrating something at the front of the class, Harry turned to Ron to ask him if there was anything new happening in Gryffindor.

Ron looked like he hadn't heard Harry, so he repeated his question a little louder.

"Potter, detention."

"What, why?" Harry looked up with indignation to see the Professor standing in the aisle between the rows of desks.

"You are being disruptive. If you disturb your housemates again, you will have two more detentions."

"That's not fair."

"It is entirely fair, this is your warning." Snape turned away dismissively, to go back to the front of the class.

Harry growled in frustration. "You old bat, I'm stuck down here anyway. What difference does it make if I have detentions? It's not like I'm going anywhere. And you weren't going to let me out of your sight this weekend either, so it might as well be a three day detention."

Harry heard Hermione groan behind him, and possibly the sound of Neville whimpering as Snape slowly turned back around. Eyes flashing, he stalked back to in front of Harry's desk, leaning over it to loom over Harry.

Harry thought his heart might burst out of his chest it was beating so hard. His mouth went dry and he wondered what had possessed him to make him say that. Snape stared at Harry for a long moment and Harry found he couldn't look away.

"If it were not for the fact," Snape hissed, "That I would have to accompany you. You would already be on your way to the headmaster's office. Stand up!"

Harry jumped when the Professor shouted, and slid off his stool.

"You will stand outside the classroom door until I call you back in. You will not slouch or lean against the walls. You will not speak to anyone who comes past unless it is a member of staff, in which event, you will direct them to me. Do you understand?"

Harry blinked, "Yeah."

Snape glared at him, "What was that?"

"Um, yes, Professor."

"Good, now get out so I can teach those who want to learn."

Harry swallowed and hurried out of the room, avoiding eye contact with his classmates.

It was more than halfway through the second lesson of the double period when Snape finally allowed Harry back into the classroom. The room was dead silent and nobody even looked up from their books as the Gryffindor came back in. Snape showed him which questions the rest of the class were already answering and he managed to immerse himself in the work.

When the bell rang for the end of the day's lessons, Harry smiled wryly at his friends, who shot him sympathetic and horrified looks in equal measures. He could understand why they were so shocked, but after two days of Snape, he was totally fed up of the man always expecting the worst of him. The man was always so angry and quick to judge.

Harry followed Snape up to the staff room, remembering that McGonagall had suggested he do his Transfiguration work up there. With Snape in the state he was in, Harry was more than a little worried about what the man was going to tell the rest of his teachers. Snape hadn't spoken a word to him since sending him out of the class.

Professors Flitwick and McGonagall were the only others in the room when they arrived. Snape took the opportunity to describe what had happened with Fowley before lunch.

Flitwick looked furious that some of his students had been involved in bullying other students.

"Who was it, Mr Potter?" He squeaked, angrily.

"I'm not sure, Professor." Harry cleared his throat, he hadn't spoken in over an hour. "I'm pretty sure they were third years. One smaller guy, and two bigger. One of the bigger boys was pretty handy with a hex, and the little one wouldn't stop talking."

Flitwick nodded, "I think I know who you mean, Mr Potter, I will have words with them. Severus, would you like to supervise their detentions, or would you leave it to me?" He glanced up at Harry. "You have your hands rather full at the moment, I fear."

Snape nodded, "If you would manage their detentions, I can scare them next week and then we can get started on trying to work a little tolerance into them."

"There will be no issues tonight?" McGonagall asked.

Snape shook his head, "My fourth years are going to keep an eye on Fowley for the evening. They will have the support of some of my prefects as well."

Flitwick showed Harry to a low table near the staffroom fireplace and bustled around him, casting spells, creating a sound bubble. Snape sat down in a nearby chair, facing away from the boy so that the charm wasn't pulling them closer. Harry watched as McGonagall walked silently over, until four feet away, when her shoes started clicking on the floorboards.

She handed him a sheet of questions, similar to those he had done yesterday. He pulled out his textbook and opened it to the page with the calculation tables he was going to need. McGonagall raised an eyebrow at all the notes written in the margins.

"I had a bit of a problem with them," Harry said. "It took me ages to get it."

She nodded, "It is one of the trickier concepts. We introduce it now to give you time to get used to the theory before your OWLs."

McGonagall gave him a searching look for a minute, "I hear you did _not_ stay out of trouble."

Harry smiled apologetically. "Sorry, Professor. It just sort of slipped out."

"Professor Snape is quite rightfully displeased .He might well report you to the headmaster, but it is more likely that he will just _inform_ the headmaster."

"Is there a difference?"

McGonagall's lips were thin, "If you were reported, then the Headmaster would punish you, he might remove Hogsmeade or quiddich privileges. If Professor Snape informs Professor Dumbledore however, he will merely make you miserable for the next couple of days."

Harry blinked, that didn't sound good. On the other hand, Snape was going to make him miserable either way.

"I'd rather Professor Snape handled it, Professor. It was him I- erm- insulted, after all."

"I rather thought you might say that." McGonagall looked up and over Harry's head. "I told you Severus, the boy doesn't believe that the Headmaster would 'let him off' if you told him."

Harry turned to see Snape watching them both from his seat with an angry expression.

"And Potter, Sound Bubbles only prevent sound from travelling one way, so no singing during the meeting."

The corner of her mouth twitched slightly as she took in Harry's dumbfounded expression and Snape's exasperated one.

The door burst open and Professor Moody limped into the room, his wooden leg clumping loudly. Harry didn't miss the look shared between McGonagall and Snape as the man paused just inside to take a long drink from his hip flask.


	6. Detention

Harry picked himself up off the floor for the second time in about fifteen minutes. To his annoyance, Snape was quite animated when disagreeing with the other Professors, and he wasn't above standing up while proving his point. Unfortunately, this drew him slightly out of the spell's range and had the effect of pulling Harry out of his seat.

This time Snape looked less irritated at Harry, and came over to help him up. The man even cleaned up the pot of ink which had spilled over the table.

The rest of the staff seemed content to continue their conversation as if nothing had happened and Snape was quick to pull Harry back inside the Sound Bubble.

"Alive, Potter? Not broken any bones this time?" His voice was mocking, although he did seem quite concerned about Harry's posture.

Harry rolled his eyes, fairly sure Snape wouldn't make a fuss about it. "No, Sir. Not quite."

Snape nodded quickly. "And are you getting on with your work?"

Harry, settled back into his sofa by now, picked up the parchment with all his work on it.

"Almost done, just got a couple more to do."

Snape looked mildly surprised. Harry had only been working for about half an hour after all and Professor McGonagall had seemed to think it would take much longer.

"Good," he said. "When you have finished, you may continue with the work you should have been doing in my class. You will have no more time this evening to do so."

Harry ran a hand through his hair, tired. Seeing this, Snape's jaw set and he gave a curt nod before spinning away- back to whatever the adults were talking about.

Of course Harry still had a detention to do. Snape wasn't just going to forget how angry he was with Harry because he had managed to do a little bit of Transfiguration work. Looking at the last two questions, Harry cheered up a little- they were exactly the same as those he had done the day before.

These questions were the ones which had had Harry most stumped. It took him ages to work out what they were trying to ask, and which numbers had to go into the equation. It took so much effort, in fact, that Harry could almost remember the whole thing number for number.

Snape's work was a lot harder when Harry brought it out of his book bag. Annoyingly, it would probably have been simple had Harry seen the lecture that afternoon. He was annoyed at himself for ignoring the Professor's warnings and not even trying to concentrate.

His face flushed as he counted how many chances Snape had given him that afternoon. Five? Yes, five chances to concentrate before Harry had totally insulted the man and practically forced him to do something about it.

Harry grimaced, he was _not_ going to have a fun detention tonight.

"Are you finished already, Potter?"

Harry jumped as his thoughts were rudely interrupted by the sudden appearance of Professor McGonagall.

"Yes, Professor, a while ago."

She gave him a tight smile, picking up the page which had been abandoned on the floor to dry.

"Yes, I can see that. I was wondering if you needed another quill, you do seem to have had rather a lot of use out of that one."

Harry looked down at the quill in his hand, it did look a bit of a mess. He had been chewing on the end of it, a habit he had never broken out of since he stopped using pencils at primary school.

"Uh-"

McGonagall sat on the sofa next to Harry and pulled a quill and a small bottle of red ink out of her pocket. She began to work her way down the sheet, making Harry feel more than a little nervous.

Sound suddenly flooded back into Harry's bubble and he turned to see Professor Flitwick tucking his wand back into a holster. The small wizard smiled at Harry and left the room a moment later, in deep conversation with Professor Sprout.

"Are they all correct?" Harry jumped as the incredulous voice of Professor Snape spoke from right behind him.

McGonagall nodded absently, making a few comments at the bottle of the page. "My apologies, Mr Potter. Either you have completed this before, or you are far more comfortable with the topic than I believed."

Harry bit his lip, annoyed. They never believed he was telling the truth.

"I did it yesterday." He said, sullenly.

"And Professor McGonagall has just apologised for the misunderstanding." Snape stepped into view with his arms folded over his chest, "I see it is not only me to whom you regularly show such disrespect."

"How can you talk about disrespect?" Harry blurted, "It's not like you do anything about the Slytherins when they do anything wrong. And you spend all of your time insulting Gryffindors."

"Enough, Potter. What do you know about how I treat my Slytherins? I keep discipline within my house and you are sorely mistaken if you believe I will not be taking Miss Lyss to account over this incident. Certain members of your house show me very little respect, so you will forgive me for returning the sentiment."

"What about Hermione? She's nothing but respectful and practically every lesson you call her a know-it-all or something. Or Neville, he tries his best!"

Snape's scowl deepened, "Miss Granger does not respect my authority in the classroom. She consistently ignores my instructions and spends more time concerned with other people's potions to the neglect of her own. Mr Longbottom seems to be totally incapable of any improvement in my subject and has continually ignored suggestions he attend either Potions Club or Remedial lessons."

"How can you say that?" Harry sputtered, fuming.

"It is true, Mr Potter."

Harry blinked up at Professor McGonagall, whom he had honestly forgotten was sitting with them. She was watching both Harry and Professor Snape with a disapproving look.

"Mr Longbottom has not responded to any offers of help with his potions work, and Miss Granger receives her worst grades in practical potions when she is seated next to Gryffindor pupils."

Harry digested this new information silently for a moment, frowning deeply. Finally, Snape huffed in annoyance.

"Why are we bothering explaining this to you? It is not like you pay any attention. Potter, you have a long detention to begin in the dungeons. Professor McGonagall has better things to do than listen to you whine all night."

Harry recognised that they would be leaving in a second and hurried to pack all of his things away. The two teachers kept talking over the top of his head.

"Minerva, the spell will be wearing off after curfew on Sunday evening, so Potter will return to classes on Monday. He should rejoin his house then too."

"That is good. It will give us plenty of time before the other schools arrive for the tournament."

"Yes, at least this arrangement is not going to continue into next week."

By then, Harry had finished tidying his things away and Snape wasted no time in leading the way downstairs again. They went down past the Great Hall and straight through the green door, down to Snape's office. Harry expected to be given a task to do straight away, but instead he was told to sit.

Once again, two plates of food appeared on the table between them. As before, Harry waited for Snape to tell him that the food was for him before starting to eat. Snape frowned.

"Potter, you are ridiculously thin and yet you never seem to be hungry- should I be warning Professor Pomfrey?"

"I am hungry, Sir." Harry said, "I just wasn't sure that the food was for me, that's all."

Snape scoffed, "Did you expect me to eat two plates of food by myself, Potter? Or did you think I was going to starve you and torment you by placing the food in front of your nose?"

Harry just blinked at the man. That had, after all been exactly what he had been thinking. The professor continued to watch Harry eating for a full minute, before turning his attention back to his own plate.

After dinner, Harry was provided with a very small brush, a bucket of water and his own pair of dragonhide gloves, and had been pointed to the back of the Potions' classroom. Snape had followed him with a small vial of something from which he poured two careful drops into the huge bucket of water.

"Is that actually enough to do anything?" Harry asked, frowning.

"This solution is of my own invention, I assure you it will do more than enough." Snape replied shortly. "You do not necessarily require those gloves for your protection, but it would be sensible to use them since they are available to you. It should serve to deal with any adverse reactions which you might set off. You are cleaning the floor to remove any potions residue. Start in this corner."

Harry realised that this was where Neville usually sat in lessons and grimaced, fidgeting with his gloves.

"I need to speak to a few of my students. If anything goes wrong, come and knock at the door. If you cannot do that, then shout."

"Yes, Sir."

Snape nodded and strode over to the classroom door. As he reached it, he spun around to shoot one last look at Harry.

"And stay away from my store cupboard."

Harry resisted the urge to roll his eyes, or salute sarcastically, and simply nodded back, trying to look as innocent as possible so that Snape would leave. Which he did, looking somewhat suspicious.

Detention was boring, as always. And, as was usual for Snape's detentions, it was also messy and unpleasant. It took Harry a long while to make it out of that corner of the room.

How a student could possibly get their potions to spill quite so far under the desks was beyond Harry. And sure, he had had some disasters over the years, but he had never produced anything which could melt a hole in the stone benches.

After about an hour, Harry had made it to the desk which was fourth from the back, which appeared to be clear of the splash zone of the back corner. His progress was a lot better from there, and he made it to the halfway mark by the time Snape returned to the room ten minutes later.

The professor watched for a moment then went to inspect Harry's work. He didn't say anything particularly insulting, so Harry assumed he must be up to the exacting standard.

"You may stand for a minute, if you wish. You should try to take in some clear air after all those fumes."

Harry levered himself to his feet, contentedly letting his knees and elbows crack as he was finally able to stretch them out. Ignoring Snape wincing at the sound. He was also aware of the smell of ozone faded away, and he could take deep breaths of the cold, dungeon air.

Harry stretched his arms out, over his head. He looked over to where Snape was at the desk, stacking essays and getting a quill and ink ready.

"You will be happy to know," Snape said, already scanning the top essay, "That Miss Lyss is currently serving detention with Mr Filch, and she will be again tomorrow. Apparently she was enraged because you caused her to miss a date with her beau."

Harry shrugged, "That's good, I guess."

"You guess? Two hours ago, you were furious at the injustice of it all. Now that I have done something about it, you could not care less!"

"Well, she was probably pretty mad at me. I mean, who wouldn't be? And all I really had to do was revision, and you would have made me do work during that meeting anyway, so it was easier, I guess. Oh, and Professor McGonagall would be more mad at me if I had made you cross earlier and I hadn't done the work, than she would have been if I had just made you cross. If you see what I mean, Sir?"

"Not really, Potter." Harry tried to explain, but Snape just held up a hand for silence. "You can get back to work now. I will try to keep the air a little cleaner for both our sakes."

Harry grudgingly got back down onto the floor and picked up his brush from where he had dropped it. He heard Snape shuffle his papers around and would have sworn that the man had said 'teenagers' almost disguising it with a cough.

When the work was finally done, Snape suggested that Harry look at the book of household spells he had been given. He even allowed the boy to practice casting a couple and corrected his pronunciation on the shoelace spell. Harry's version (according to Snape) would have caused his shoes to start growing fur uncontrollably.

It wasn't until the stack of essays had been resorted into a new, marked pile that Snape decided to call it a night. He walked Harry down the empty corridor to the isolation room.

"I will be here to collect you in the morning, I have no high expectations after seeing your dismal practice with that alarm spell, so I will awaken you tomorrow. I will not do so on Sunday."

Harry yawned widely. "Thanks, Professor, goodnight."

Snape raised an eyebrow and Harry realised that he had pretty much dismissed the Head of Slytherin.

"Um…"

"Goodnight, Potter."

Snape spun on his heel and stalked back down the way they had come. Harry stared after him for a moment, then shrugged and made his way to bed.

"Potter!"

Harry jerked upright, eyes blurry, arms scrambling wildly out to both sides, searching for his glasses.

"Wha- Whut'd I do?"

The first thing Harry focussed on was Professor Snape, standing ominous in the doorway. Harry blinked slowly several times, then dragged up his arm to look at his watch.

"It's half 6!" He said, incredulous. "'S a Saturday."

"Congratulations," Snape drawled, "You can tell the time. Yes, it is a Saturday and I have a lot to do, so get up. Be outside my office by quarter past seven and bring your bag with you."

Harry crept along the corridor as silently as possible. He was doing his best to avoid any Slytherins who might be skulking about at this time of day. So far he had been successful but it wasn't likely to last. When he finally reached the Potion Master's office, he knocked quickly. The door was thrown open from inside.

"You are early Potter, and I told you to wait out-"Snape cut off suddenly and his eyes narrowed, scanning the boy in front of him. "What have you done to yourself?"

"Uh, I reckoned it was time for a change in look?"

"In the last half hour?"

"Um…" Harry trailed off, avoiding Snape's gaze.

Harry supposed that he was a bit of a sight. After showering, he had been amazed to see that his usually dark hair had turned itself a red so bright that it was almost pink. His eyebrows and nails matched them, as did an annoying smudge around each eye. The effect was really startling and nothing Harry did seemed to have any effect on his appearance.

"Did you at least get rid of whatever it was that caused this?"

Harry nodded, "I think it was the shampoo in the shower. I tipped it all out, and it smelled pretty strongly of lemons, but I thought the elves had just changed it for something else."

"You thought lemon grass to preserve the Colour Potion? You probably missed the separated layers from the potion not mixing properly with the gel."

"I might have done," Harry conceded.

"Well do not expect me to fix it for you. I expect it will not last until Monday at any rate, especially if you bring in Miss Granger's help." Snape disappeared to his desk for a second, tucking a sheaf of parchment into his pocket as he returned. "Breakfast time, I think."

Harry groaned quietly, of course there was no way that Snape would let him escape this.

Altogether, it wasn't as embarrassing as Harry had been expecting. For some reason, the trick with the Slytherins on Thursday had seemed to have had an effect on the rest of the school. Harry wasn't sure whether it was all pranks, or if some of it was personal choice, but there was a lot of students in the Great Hall who were sporting new hairstyles.

The Weasley twins were sporting particularly interesting twin devil horns, sculpted out of their own hair. Ron was glaring across the table angrily, with his hair slicked back in the same style as Malfoy usually wore. One Sixth year Ravenclaw was proudly showing off a grey rhino horn to his friends, waggling his eyebrows suggestively at a seventh year sitting at the next table.

Cedric Diggory at Hufflepuff had a small stack of books which he was going through with his friends, they seemed to be working on animating a badger to move over the surface of their hair.

Some idiot had taught some second years a colour changing charm and they were causing havoc at the tables, thoroughly annoying those older students who had dragged themselves to breakfast so early in the morning. Luckily the spell only lasted for about half a minute, so there was no real damage. It was however, difficult to eat your breakfast when spells kept whizzing towards your head.

Fowley was one of those who had discovered this spell, and they were taking a particular delight in casting the spells since, for the first time, they could actually tell the difference between all of the different shades.

Fowley had judged that by sitting near to Professor Snape, any retaliation from the older Slytherins was likely to be severely toned down. Usually this would have been a dangerous move, but Snape had yet to finish his first morning coffee. Fowley judged that they had at least until the man was halfway through his second cup before the House Master started handing out punishments.

Harry watched all of this with an amused air. Somehow, instead of having the whole hall laughing at him, he was actually in fashion.

Gradually people started drifting away, Fowley left with a surprising turn of speed when it became apparent Snape was getting to the endo of his second cup, and had begun to take more of an interest in the happenings at the table. Snape tapped on the table to get Malfoy's attention a few seats down and sent a meaningful look towards Fowley's back.

Malfoy sighed and stood up to follow, some of his friends following. Harry laughed as he saw Crabbe and Goyle both grab chocolate muffins from the table to take with them.

"So what's happening today, Sir?" Harry asked, trying to sound respectful. The detention last night had been really unpleasant, and he really didn't want today scrubbing floors on his hands and knees again.

"You, I believe, have enough classwork to keep you occupied until at least lunchtime. I have to supervise a study group this morning, so you can work in there too as long as you stay quiet. Or you could always go back to the Slytherin common room."

Harry held up his hands in surrender, "I can work quietly-"

BANG

They both jumped and looked to the source of the noise. Out of nowhere, a fish had appeared. It flapped loudly against the table, disturbing a bowl of cereal and several glasses of pumpkin juice. This managed to attract the attention of a few other students as well.

Hocking, the prefect, looked up from her pile of toast and raised an eyebrow.

"I didn't realise that trout was on the menu this morning."

Her boyfriend laughed and choked on his cup of tea.

Snape and Harry kept staring at the fish, dumbfounded. After a long moment, Snape pulled a pocket watch out by its long, silver chain, flicking it open.

"Potter, did you make an attempt to set an alarm for this morning?"

"Yeah, for 8 o'clock, but you woke me up early anyway."

"I think you ought to apply yourself more to your charms," Snape said, straight faced. "I know you are not a light sleeper, but surely just the noise would suffice?" He drew his wand and silently banished the fish, leaving more than a few people staring vacantly at the empty space on the table.


	7. Is this a school or a schoal?

Pansy Parkinson came running into the hall, heading straight for Snape.

"Sir, I was just with Malfoy- Fowley's been given detention for the whole morning. They tried to hit Malfoy with one of those colour change spells and hit Professor Moody instead! He was quite furious, Professor. We thought that he might hex someone, but he just gave Fowley detention until lunch, then he went back upstairs."

Snape looked quite concerned, "Was anyone else given detention?"

"That's the thing, Sir. When they said it wasn't just Fowley, he gave Malfoy, Nott and Zabini detention too, but he told them to go tomorrow instead. It was really strange."

"Giving a second year an entire morning of detention is unusual, I will check up on Fowley later. Miss Parkinson, please tell Fowley to come to me after they are released from detention. They may have lunch first, but you must inform me that they are doing so."

"Yes, Professor. I could go with Bulstrode later to ask questions about our Defence homework, if that would help? I think she was planning on going up anyway."

Snape nodded, "That is a good idea, try to not be obvious about it though, Parkinson. We all know Miss Bulstrode is not the most ardent student of deceit."

Parkinson curtsied – really curtsied, who does that these days? - and walked over to speak to Millicent Bulstrode a little further down the table.

"Did she just curtsey at you?" Harry demanded, looking incredulous. "Like an actual curtsey?"

Snape smirked at Harry, "Some children do still learn manners, Potter."

The Gryffindor gave a small laugh, "Oh, did you want me to curtsey, Sir? I think I'd have to practise, it would be awfully embarrassing if I fell over in front of the Great Hall."

"You do seem to manage to fall over your own feet a surprising amount already, Potter. I would be surprised if that still humiliated you." Snape rose to his feet, and Harry hurried to follow. "And they stopped serving dripping at breakfast years ago, so do try to tone down the sarcasm until later in the day."

Harry grinned despite himself, checked to see that his shoes were still tied properly and rushed after the quickly disappearing, swirling black robes.

"On Saturday mornings, many of the study groups meet to finish their homework. Any group which is having particular difficulties is identified by a prefect and then sent to a classroom we have booked. That is where we will be going this morning." They stepped onto the Marble Staircase, passing most of the third year Ravenclaws who had each dyed their hair a different colour of the rainbow. Harry thought that a couple of them might have used Muggle means, by the state of their hands.

"Why don't you just do this thing in the Dungeons?"

"Because my students are welcome to bring along any friends from other houses who might benefit from being in a study group. If they feel they might require more help than can be obtained from a prefect."

"Oh," Harry said, frowning. He had never heard of anything like that.

"Potter, I know it is difficult for you, but please do not stop walking when you start thinking. It is making us late."

Harry rolled his eyes, he was only a step behind the professor. It wasn't his fault that the man had such ridiculously long legs.

Of the students in the classroom, about three quarters were Slytherins. The rest were mostly Ravenclaws, but there were a few Hufflepuffs and a solitary third year Gryffindor who seemed to be the twin sister of one of the Slytherins. She looked a bit nervous when Harry appeared, so he tried to not stare at her. He knew enough to know that Snape would kill him if he scared somebody away.

They sorted themselves out into little groups around tables, spreading out parchment and books. Snape told them that this week they would have to come up to his desk when they wanted his help, since it would be difficult for him to move around the room with Harry in tow.

Harry was pleasantly surprised, he hadn't been looking forward to being dragged around the classroom as Snape dealt with each question.

"Potter, stop grinning like a fool, you are to practise that alarm casting spell. Hopefully, some instruction will make the spell work better. If not, you will at least be able to make a career as a Leprechaun Fishmonger."

"Why Leprechaun?"

Snape gave him a disapproving look. He turned to a fifth year student who was already waiting patiently with a piece of crowded parchment in her hand.

"Miss Phalarope, could you explain for Mr Potter's sake, why a conjured fish might be related to Leprechaun gold?"

The girl startled when Snape asked her the question, she had obviously not been prepared for him to ask her anything. When she spoke, it was in a halting manner. "Well, I suppose Leprechauns are best known because their gold vanishes shortly after it has been produced. And like anything which is conjured, it comes from non-being, so it has to return there. So, I guess it could be because they will both vanish?"

"Well put, Phalarope. Remembered from your _third year_ transfiguration theory. Hence, Potter, a Leprechaun fishmonger- all of the fish would vanish within a few hours of being conjured."

Harry blinked, "Well, how was I supposed to know that bit about Leprechaun gold?" He conveniently ignored his experience with it over the summer, "Where was I supposed to hear about that? It's hardly common knowledge where I come from, Sir."

"Do not be a brat, Potter. You 'come from' Godric's Hollow, a wizarding town. Miss Phalarope here is a muggle born, so being raised by muggles is not an excuse. No, your problem is that you do not apply the knowledge and sense which you already have. You have to make an effort to learn about our world if you are going to live in it."

Harry ground his teeth together at the rebuke, trying to not snap back at the professor. At the moment, the only person who was aware of the debate was Phalarope and she was tactfully focussing her attention on her parchment. He didn't really want to make this a public debate.

"Keep reading that book I gave you on household spells. Set that spell so that it will go off every half hour. Cast it in a minute, then read that book until the first alarm goes off. I will come across and supervise your second casting if the first does not go to plan."

"Is there anything I actually _have_ to read?" Harry glared up at Snape, who returned the challenge with a raised eyebrow, waiting. "In particular, Sir?"

Snape nodded, "There are a couple of sections in there about conjuring and vanishing which might be of some help to you. I would suggest the vanishing spells. Do try not to banish anything too valuable."

Harry dropped into the desk nearest the front of the room, not bothered enough to pretend he wasn't sulking. As he cast the alarm spell, he realised that his wand motion was far too angular and jerky because of his mood. It didn't cheer him up to think that something was going to happen in half an hour – probably- and that now he could do nothing about it. He dragged the large book out of his bag and flicked through until he found the Vanishing spells. He wouldn't put it past Snape to set some sort of homework on it.

Twenty eight and a half minutes later, Harry was struggling to even keep his eyes open, let alone focussed on the textbook. Snape had already tried to get him back on task a couple of times, but mostly he was too busy dealing with the other students.

Harry was so close to sleep, in fact, that he missed seeing Snape check his watch, stand up and come over to stand behind his chair, drawing the eyes of every student in the room as he did so. Snape lightly picked up a leather bound textbook from his own desk, weighing it in his hand. The students' twenty pairs of eyes widened, as one. Snape held the book out, above and slightly behind Harry's drooping head.

Snape mouthed the words "Three, two, one." And made the slightest of movements, forward.

BANG!

'Stup!'

"Ouch!"

Snape almost smiled, tossing his book back into its place. Twenty mouths had no such inhibition, and laughed heartily at the scene in front of them.

The loud noise of the alarm spell had woken Harry right from his almost sleep. He had jerked upright reflexively, straight into the path of the heavy tome being held by Snape. Shouting out had been a reflex too, as nothing had been hurt other than Harry's pride. What had really caused the laughter though, was the shower of small fish which had appeared from nowhere and continued to rain down on Harry for a good few seconds.

Harry was left sitting in his chair, rubbing the back of his head, surrounded and covered in about a hundred tiny fish. Each one still flapping away as if it had been dragged from a happy little pond to be here.

Snape seemed to take pity on Harry after a few seconds, or perhaps just grew irritated with Harry sitting there open mouthed, still uncomprehending of what had happened. He cast a few spells, making the fish disappear.

"If they are going to vanish anyway-"Harry said in a small voice, "Then why do you banish them?"

"They could take up to an hour to disappear, I thought they might be a little bit of a distraction," Snape said.

Snape set the rest of the students back to their work and sat down to help Harry with a few of the charms he had been struggling with, with fairly good grace considering Harry had just fallen asleep.

"I do hope that Charms is not your best subject?"

Harry grimaced, "I'm not usually this bad, Sir. I tend to do a bit better when I've actually seen the spell cast before I have to do it."

Snape was an unexpectedly good charms teacher – mainly because he didn't give up even when Harry messed up the first ten times. That didn't mean that Harry would be advising the man to change profession, more that he could see the benefits that came from one to one teaching. Harry was able to get the hang of a couple of banishing charms, and he was waiting to discover the result of his fourth attempt at the alarm spell when the door opened and some Slytherin students rushed into the room.

"Professor Snape!" Pansy Parkinson arrived in front of Snape breathless and had to take a moment to recover, before she could continue.

"We can't find Fowley anywhere- they've vanished!"

Snape was on his feet in a second, ready to rush off. "'They?' Including Professor Moody?"

"No, Sir. We saw Professor Moody walking down the stairs when we were on our way to asking that question Millicent had. But Fowley's disappeared. We saw Mr Filch in the Entrance Hall, and the Defence classroom is empty. We looked everywhere we could think of, but there's no sign."

"I will help you, find as many fourth years and up and we will do our best to take a systemic approach to this. Meet me at the grand staircase, and do try to be discrete." Snape looked concerned, but as in control as ever. "Tell the others to bring textbooks or parchment, say you have a project to hand in and agree on subjects."

Pansy and the others nodded and left again. Snape was about to press the students already in the room into service when Harry managed to get his attention.

"Sir, I can find out where Fowley is really easily."

Snape looked suspicious. "Do you know? Why on earth have you not said anything?"

"I don't know right now, I can find out though." Harry raised placating hands.

"That is what we are going to do, Potter. Stop wasting my time!"

"No, listen to me! I just need a minute in a room by myself, and then I can tell you straight away." Harry felt a little embarrassed standing there with everyone watching him.

Professor Snape, in particular, did not look impressed. He fixed Harry in place for a long moment, trying to judge if the boy was actually trying to help or if he was using this as an excuse to distract Snape.

"And what exactly is it that you are going to be doing in this room all by yourself?"

A couple of students sniggered, not any of the Slytherins though, they all looked blank, or anxious because of the holdup. The students from the other houses didn't seem to understand what the problem was. But Harry was starting to grasp how the Slytherins felt.

"I, uh, can't tell you Sir, sorry."

Snape folded his arms over his chest and took a deep breath. He exhaled slowly, not once breaking eye contact with Harry.

"Come, Potter. Everybody else, tidy this room up."

Harry followed cautiously. He was determined to not tell Snape about the Marauder's Map, but at the same time, he realised how important it would be to find Fowley if they were in any sort of trouble like the previous day.

They both ignored the bang and a tiny minnow which popped into existence when they were half way down the corridor. Harry would have vanished it if he had had a moment, but since Snape didn't even pause, he left it to disappear by itself.

They reached the door to an unused classroom, and Snape pushed it open with a bang, scaring away a long-eared house elf who had been polishing the desks.

Snape whirled around to face Harry and with a wave of his wand which made the boy duck to the side, he closed the door behind them both.

"Potter, I have to insist that you tell me what you are going to do. Do you have some method of contacting Fowley? Are you going to attempt scrying? I have never heard that you have either the inclination or the aptitude for the technique, and I am obliged to warn you that it is dangerous and may result in the detachment of your eyeballs," Snape showed no signs of a smile.

"What?" Harry shook his head, trying to dislodge the scene that Snape had put in his mind. "No, of course not, I just have a way of finding out where Fowley is. But I don't want to show anyone."

"Unfortunately, that is not one of your options. You will either attempt this in my presence, or you accompany me as I search the school. If you have a faster way, then it will save time and effort for many people, including yourself. Surely that is incentive enough?"

Harry thought for a minute, unconsciously assuming a pout as he leaned against one of the classroom desks. Maybe it wouldn't be so terrible if Snape saw the map. He had seen it before, technically, last year, when it had insulted Snape and Lupin had confiscated it. He didn't think he could bear it if the professor destroyed it, which he might well do.

But he had to consider Fowley too. The kid could have been really hurt yesterday when those third years had attacked. Harry knew that Flitwick had promised to deal with them, but what if they had slipped away? Or what if Professor Moody had done something? The man was becoming notorious throughout the school because of his unorthodox teaching methods. And it was obvious that Snape and McGonagall were a little wary of him.

He came to a decision.

"Professor Snape," he started as respectfully as possible. "I have an… object… which will show me how to find Fowley. If I use it in front of you, do you promise to not destroy it?"

"No." Snape said, flatly. Harry's heart dropped. "I cannot promise such a thing, this 'object' may be dangerous, or contain dark magic. I may be obliged to destroy or confiscate it." He seemed to relent a little, "If it is harmless, however, I see no reason why that might be necessary."

"You're filling me with hope, you know, Sir." Harry muttered. It was as polite a mutter as possible, though. He dug into his bag and pulled out the map, ignoring the 'snap' of Snape's jaw as the man recognised it.

"I know, sorry." Harry said, mostly to himself.

He said the password as quietly as possible, having little hope that Snape's bat ears might miss it. The map came to life, coming up with its usual greeting. Harry spread the map out onto the larger teacher's desk. Snape was at his side in an instant, pushing to get a better view at it.

Harry started by scanning quickly over the common areas of the school, like the library and Great Hall, before covering classrooms and larger corridors. He kicked himself when he started looking at Gryffindor tower, and tried searching the Slytherin Dorms instead.

"There." Snape said, his hand coming down to rest on the parchment, Harry glanced across to see Fowley's name next to somebody else, in a storage room directly above the library. He focussed on it long enough to notice that the ink read 'Ginevra Weasley' but his attention had already been grabbed elsewhere.

"Professor, did you know that there's somebody in your office?"

Snape responded instantly to that, pushing Harry's fingers out of the way so that he could see better. The little footprints showing the person's progression were slowly making their way around the edges of the room.

"There has to be a mistake." Snape said, but there was a note of some emotion in his voice. "There is no way that _they_ could get into the school without the knowledge of the headmaster, and no reason that they might be in my office. You and your little friends must have made a mess of the enchantments."

"We didn't make it, and the map doesn't make mistakes."

"It must do," Snape dismissed with a wave of his hand. "Either way, I will be looking into this. But our first concern is with Fowley. We need to make sure they are safe."

"It's just them and Ginny." Harry said, shrugging. "She likes the kid. I've seen them talking before. You could always send your prefects to check up on them or something, I reckon you don't need to take your whole house along."

"Yes, thank you, Potter." Snape looked pensive, "You may keep this map for the moment, but if I ever even _suspect_ you of using this to sneak around the castle at all times of day, then I will be confiscating it. If I had known what this was last year, I would have destroyed it. It was unbelievably irresponsible of you to have this when Black was searching for you."

Harry clenched his jaw, reminding himself that Snape did not yet realise that his godfather was innocent. "Professor Lupin said the same thing and confiscated it when he found out what it was too, Sir."

Snape just snorted, Harry remembered that the man wasn't particularly fond of Lupin either. Maybe he hated everybody who was nice to Harry on principle.

"Let us stand the Slytherins down then. My sixth year prefects are competent enough to deal with this. At least they are when they can be distracted from each other for any length of time."

After Snape had given instructions to most of his students, they headed down to the dungeons as fast as possible. The whole thing was very smoothly controlled and there was less than five minutes from when they had left the disused classroom to passing through the green door.

To get to any other part of the dungeons, you had to first pass Snape's office. The man seemed to realise just this now and turned to Harry.

"Potter, you are to stay here. Do not come any closer to my office. If anybody is in my office, which I highly doubt, then I will escort them out. If I do not, then you have my full permission to use any spell you know to defend yourself, then run to the Slytherin common room and contact Professor Dumbledore through the Floo. Do you understand?"

Harry nodded, reluctantly. "Yes, Sir." He said when Snape prompted him.

Snape strode down the corridor, drawing his wand and bursting into the room. Maybe that was the only way he knew to open doors, Harry thought.

Harry listened as carefully as possible. He could not hear any conversation, but he thought that he could hear the soft murmur of spells being cast.

After a couple of minutes, Snape emerged alone.

"There is nobody in there, Potter. Your charms are broken."

Harry shook his head, pulling the map back out and opening it. Looking down at where they were, he shook his head. He walked down to the office, hearing Snape curse behind him, and follow. He saw the footprints walking from near the cupboard door, before they stopped suddenly. Harry moved slowly towards where the other person was shown to be. He glanced at the floor and walls, wondering if the man might be an animagus, but there was no signs of life-

But there was.

Harry abruptly stopped halfway through breathing in and heard it. The sound of somebody who had been matching their breathing to his. It was slightly strained, as if the person was struggling to breathe. Harry ducked his head, trying to look like he had given up and backed away slowly, keeping his eyes firmly glued to the name on the map.

He brought his hand up to rub at his forehead, hiding his mouth behind his wrist as he did so. "There's somebody invisible. Right there." He said, as quietly as possible.

Snape twirled his wand between his long fingers, seemingly bored. "Potter, if you are done wasti-"

He stopped abruptly, turning from Harry to point directly at the patch of wall that harry had been examining. He gave a sharp tug on the wand, flicking it towards himself. An invisibility cloak flew towards them, appearing as it lost its shape, no longer hiding what it had been before.

Before their eyes, a man appeared.


	8. Merlin's Waxy Right Ear

Snape batted the cloak out of his way and the three of them stared at each other. At the other side of the room, Professor Moody had suddenly appeared. Once you could see him, it was almost impossible to believe that the man had ever been invisible. His visage was so shocking that the idea that he had not been there a moment before was incomprehensible.

Harry fumbled for his wand seconds too late, and realised that Professors Snape and Moody already had theirs drawn and were in duelling stances.

"What are you doing here, Moody?" Snape hissed, wand pointed unwavering at the other man's chest. "Was skulking about the school at all hours not sufficient for you? Did it get boring? Not satisfy your paranoia enough? You have such a flair for the dramatic, surely the common invisibility cloak is beneath you."

"What is it to you Snape? Dumbledore gave me permission to search the school before our guests arrive. And your office _is_ part of the school buildings."

"Did he indeed? We will see about that…"

Harry was worried that the two men were going to start duelling right there in that tiny office. He hoped not, there wasn't much room. And lots of the potions ingredients on the walls looked quite volatile-

"I'm amazed Dumbledore's letting you look after Potter. Especially with your past. Always said he was far too trusting." Moody shifted his fake leg, Harry noticed it was totally silent for once.

"Even Dumbledore doesn't have much say in the matter I am afraid. And the boy has come to no harm." Snape spat back

Moody gave a barking laugh, and gestured to where Harry was standing behind Snape, with his vivid hair. "It has only been two days and so far the boy has broken a bone and been maliciously attacked. I'm glad you aren't in charge of looking after me!"

"Not yet." Snape said darkly. At the reminder from Moody, he had seemed to realise that Harry was actually in the room with them, what he had been trying to avoid. He looked like he came to a decision and signed to Harry.

"Come on then, Potter, we are late for lunch. Professor, do try to not make too much of a mess, or I might ask the Headmaster if I can do some searching of my own."

"Sir, are you really just going to leave him there by himself?" Harry asked, as soon as he thought they were out of earshot.

"Would you rather I had duelled him?" Snape scoffed. "I have to tell you that the headmaster generally takes a dim view of teachers attacking one other- especially in front of our students. Do not worry Potter, I do not keep anything incriminating in my office."

How very Slytherin, Harry thought. It was strange, but the professor seemed to go out of his way to teach his students some stealth. Professor McGonagall was more about openness – well honesty anyway. Gryffindors weren't all touchy-feely like the Hufflepuffs. (Although maybe that was unfair, you couldn't accuse students like Zacharias Smith or Diggory of being like that. And Ron couldn't keep his feelings hidden from anyone.) He supposed the Slytherin way wasn't too bad, after all, he left himself out in the open far too often.

Harry realised that he was still carrying the open map and glanced down at it.

"I still don't understand why it says _he's_ there," He said, earning a glance from Snape. "The map just doesn't make mistakes."

"What are you basing that on? I thought you did not make the map."

"I didn't, but it has always been right before. It shows up animagi and everything."

"Which animagi?"

"Uh," The first to spring to mind was Sirius, but Harry was pretty sure that Dumbledore and his godfather expected that to be kept a secret. "Professor McGonagall?"

"Professor McGonagall hardly ever uses her animagus form, as far as I know, she uses it once a year to impress the first years."

"Well, she does show up then." Harry tried.

"As if you would know that, you would be in class when that happens."

They arrived at the Great Hall, and Harry decided that Snape probably wasn't interested enough for him to argue his case. The man probably had enough to think about at the moment, what with another teacher rifling through his office and Fowley, speaking of whom-.

"Professor, we found Fowley." Hocking, the prefect, walked up nonchalant, dragging the second year along with her. "They were in the room you told us about with some third year Weasley girl- who knew Weasleys could have a girl? Anyway, Fowley seems fine, but we've put them on watch for a couple of days."

Snape nodded, and followed his students back to where they had been sitting at the table. He pulled a plate towards himself and fixed Harry with a meaningful look to make sure he did the same, before he started talking to them.

"So, what was the purpose of this clandestine meeting with Miss Weasley?" Snape asked formally, picking up his cutlery with oddly dainty movements.

Fowley blushed and fidgeted with the crusts on their sandwich. "I was just asking for some advice on some stuff…"

Snape quirked an eyebrow and waited.

"I liked how her brothers did their hair, okay? I was just asking for some tips, and she's always been nice to me before. She has a mean bat bogey hex too!"

Blackfort laughed from the other side of the table, "I can vouch for the hex, Sir. It's a horrible little thing. I gave her 10 housepoints for it."

Snape looked disapproving.

"And a warning, of course." Blackfort amended quickly.

"What does 'on watch' mean, Professor?" Harry asked, stuck a few minutes further behind in the conversation than everyone else.

"The student has to make a designated prefect aware of where they are going to be at all times outside of classes. It is a bit of a pain for everybody involved, but it may be used as a punishment or a precaution." Blackfort answered instead of his Head of House, since the man was taking great care in cutting up a piece of roast beef.

"Or both." The man had paused in this endeavour and looked over at Fowley, who guiltily put down the spoon that they were using to pound a potato crisp into a fine powder.

Fowley instead glared up at Harry in a way which was becoming familiar. "It's weird to see you eating food, Potter. I thought that you just ate quills. You seem to get through them fast enough."

"And you seem to spend a lot of time being supervised for someone who claims to behave!" Harry shot back.

Snape _daintily_ choked over his coffee at the hypocrisy of Harry's accusation.

Harry ignored him.

Harry was escorted to the Slytherin common room by Snape, before the professor stormed off to talk to Dumbledore. Harry was a little apprehensive, but the room was nowhere near as oppressive as it had been the other day.

"Currently, the common opinion is that the Slytherins were trendsetters for a new craze." Hocking told Harry, "Which is very lucky for you, do not imagine that you would get away so easily the next time you try something like this."

Hocking and Blackfort disappeared off to some corner of the common room with revision for a test they had in the coming week, so Harry curled himself up on a sofa near the fireplace, lost in his thoughts. After some time, to his not so great surprise, Malfoy approached with some friends.

He was slightly shocked when this didn't seem to be a hostile visit.

"Don't look quite so amazed, Potter. You're in our spot." Malfoy said, taking a comfortable armchair. Crabbe, Goyle and a couple of others dragged other seats over so that they could sit nearer to the fireplace too. Theodore Nott looked meaningfully at the space next to Harry, until he relented and moved up so the other boy could fit too.

There was some meaningless chat for a few minutes. They talked about the hairstyles that had cropped up around the school, and how they might have been managed. Crabbe swore that Dumbledore had been walking around in the morning with 'orange' hair. Harry guessed that the man might have reverted to his original auburn, which he had seen once in a picture in one of Hermione's history books. Nott and Zabini on Harry's other side were gossiping about some quiddich player from the Falmouth Falcons and who they were rumoured to be going out with.

Malfoy sighed loudly, swinging his legs over the arm of his chair. "I'm bored, anyone up for a broom race?"

"You always moan when you lose Draco, what's the point?"

"I do not moan! It's just not fair when the other person cheats- Nott."

Nott snorted from beside Harry, "It's 'fair' when you cheat, Malfoy."

"Potter will race me. Unless he's too cowardly."

Harry rolled his eyes at the ridiculous attempt to goad him, "I can't leave the dungeons, Malfoy. And that was an awful attempt at provoking me since I'm not a toddler."

"Would have worked in first year." Zabini muttered.

"Anyway," Harry glared briefly at Zabini, "I'm stuck down here, so unless you want to race around the common room…"

There was a moment where the only sound was Malfoy rhythmically kicking his heels against the side of his chair.

"Yeah, let's do that. Crabbe, fetch a couple of brooms, would you?"

Harry sat up, looking at Malfoy like he was mad.

"Are you mad?"

"Nah, we've done it before."

Harry didn't feel convinced. Probably because Malfoy didn't look very convincing. It would be quite fun flying inside though, and he had never really been in a broom race before. That was usually his favourite part of being a seeker.

"I guess…"

Crabbe came lumbering into the room with three Nimbus 2001s in his arms. Malfoy was on his feet in a moment, examining the twigs and selecting the best from the set. Harry stood more cautiously and looked for the better of the remaining two. The one he decided on had a few scratches in the varnish and looked like it might have a bent footrest, but apart from that seemed to be in pretty good condition for a two year old student broom.

Harry noticed that a few students had started to take notice of what was happening, and were putting down their work. A couple of less subtle people, including Fowley, were coming closer and finding spots with a good view.

"Oh, Merlin's waxy, lopsided, right ear, what on earth are you planning on doing with those?"

Guiltily, Harry shoved the broom back towards Crabbe and took a step away from Malfoy.

Blackfort seemed to have been walking through the middle of the room with two mugs of hot chocolate when he had noticed what was happening.

"Can't either of you keep out of trouble for an hour? I'm trying to study down here. Malfoy, unless you and your friends are going upstairs very soon with those, then you had better be planning on cleaning them. And don't tell me that you have training, because I _know_ there's no quiddich this year."

"I wasn't going to. It's no skin off your nose what we do, Blackfort. Why don't you get back to that dragon you call your girlfriend?"

"Detention."

Harry jumped, along with the entirety of Slytherin house. He could have sworn that he had heard the voice of his Potions Master, but the man was nowhere to be seen. After a panicked casting about the room for the man, Harry found some sense and followed the gaze of the other students.

They all seemed to be staring at a large snake sculpture next to the wall. It reminded Harry of those which filled the Chamber of Secrets. It towered over the nearest students, standing at about ten feet tall, with much more of it coiled on the floor, the neck flared out in the style of a cobra, and the forked tongue projected out of the fanged mouth. He started as the thing's tongue moved.

"Put the brooms away." Severus Snape's voice was definitely coming from the mouth of the stone snake. Malfoy was wavering, but didn't look like he was going to and after another moment, the figurehead spoke again. "Mr Malfoy, if you do not want to spend the rest of your natural life in detention, you will put those brooms back exactly where they belong. That means the broom shed and _not_ your dormitory."

Malfoy groaned and snatched the three brooms from his friend, before storming out of the common room door. Zabini jumped up from his seat, and nabbed the much more comfortable one which was now free.

Out of the corner of his eye, Harry watched as Blackfort changed direction, from where he had been heading, to where the seventh year prefect was casually leaning against a portrait. The Gryffindor watched as the older student casually tapped the ornate frame with his wand, then shared a few words with Blackfort. They both laughed then each went on their own way. Blackfort juggled the mugs into one hand so that he could cast a warming spell on the drinks inside.

There was a tap on Harry's shoulder and he spun in his seat to see a tall girl with a Head badge on. He hadn't known that the Head Girl was a Slytherin this year.

"Your friends are at the door. I don't know how they found us, but you had better not tell anyone else where our common room is. You can go out and talk to them, but don't let them in and don't go far enough from the door that you can't be seen."

Harry nodded, jumping up immediately. He hoped it was Ron and Hermione, he missed seeing them around all the time. Ron knew where the room was at any rate since they had both been here in second year.

"Harry!"

Harry was engulfed in a very bushy hug as soon as he made it through the wall. He awkwardly patted Hermione on the back, before escaping from her grip and felt Ron thump him on the shoulder.

"Ouch, hi guys!"

"Hey mate," Ron grinned. "You wouldn't believe that detention we had! Pince is such a cow, she had us putting all those books back and she wouldn't even show us the spells she uses to sort them. And I got a nasty bite off one of the spare Monster books, some idiot hid it under a Charms almanac." He showed Harry where a chunk had been taken out of the side of one of his fingers.

Harry shook his head, "Hagrid is mental for assigning that again."

"Harry, how have you been?" Hermione burst, "Ron's been telling me about this spell, and I've read about it of course. Who would have thought that the four houses actually act like real houses? And when I go back to look at Hogwarts: A History, they make it so obvious. I guess it's funny how the meaning changes depending on what you know But what about Professor Snape? How are you managing?"

Harry blinked and tried to sort out everything she had just said. "I'm okay, I guess. Snape's ben alright, for him. And the Slytherins haven't been as bad as you would think. I mean, they're still as sarcastic as hell, but they've been okay about it."

"The twins think you're some sort of hero," Ron said, "They haven't shut up about this hair thing we started since it happened. I thought they were jealous, but they've been _making a bomb_ from selling all this stuff to the younger students."

Hermione nodded, "That's been very interesting too. I found a wonderful potion for my hair, Harry, because of all of this. Apparently it was invented by your grandfather."

She noticed Harry's sudden interest. "Yes, I thought you'd want to know. It didn't say much, but I made a note of which book it was and I'll withdraw it for you when Madame Pince lets me back in the library."

"You're banned?" Harry laughed, "How did that happen?"

"She got rather sharp with me during that detention," Hermione pouted, "She seemed to think I was spending too much time looking through the books and not enough sorting them. How was I supposed to know where to put them without checking them? It's ridiculous!"

Harry and Ron shared a look, but wisely made no comment.

"Hey, I didn't tell you what happened!" Harry said, "It was the weirdest thing, we were looking for Fowley – you know, that kid- who had gone missing. And we saw that someone was in Snape's office, so we went down to look and guess who it was?"

They both shook their heads, stunned.

"It was Moody, and he was hiding under this invisibility cloak- not mine. Yeah, it turns out he was searching the office. Said Dumbledore had told him to. I thought Snape was gonna murder him, but he just dragged me up to lunch. How weird is that?"

His two friends just gaped at him.

"Blimey," Ron said, "That's crazy, do you think Dumbledore thinks Snape's up to something?"

"Nah, Moody said Dumbledore had told him to check out the whole school. I think it's Moody that doesn't trust Snape. Which makes sense, because Snape doesn't trust Moody either."

Hermione frowned, "So Professor Snape didn't do anything? He just left Professor Moody looking through his stuff?"

"Yeah, weird right? I thought they were going to have a duel or something."

"What do you think Moody was looking for anyway?" Ron asked, "What's Snape going to keep in his office, it's even less secure than his classroom is."

"What do you mean?"

"The other day he made me run in there to get something to fix Dean's hand, you remember he got that sap on it? Yeah, well the door wasn't even locked. Something to do with emergency precautions, I think. I had to go the long way round because the ingredient store's locked during classes."

Harry's forehead creased in a frown, "Yeah that is weird."

"We'll have a think about it, Harry. I want to see if Madam Pince will let me into the library. I still have Herbology homework and Ronald has work to do too. I'll try to find something to fix your hair too, if you want. But it is pretty fashionable at the moment, so you might want to keep it."

"I've done all my homework, you know." Harry smiled, "I haven't had much choice. I've either been doing that or detentions. Homework is slightly better. Oh, and the hair, I think I'd rather get it back to the right colour. If you see anything that might help, I mean. It's a bit… bright."

"Much brighter than you, Potter." The three of them jumped as Draco Malfoy made his way back into his common room, still slightly pink in the face from returning the racing brooms. The wall slid shut behind him and they shook their heads and turned back to look at each other.

"Prat. Have you told him about the time we broke in yet?" Ron asked.

"Nah, I didn't fancy letting Tweedledum and Tweedledee know that we knocked them out, but you're still welcome to." Harry offered. "As long as you let me know so I can be far away when you tell them."

Hermione huffed, glancing cautiously at the wall the house was hidden behind. "We really do have to get on, Harry, sorry. We can't wait to have you back in Gryffindor, it's been quiet without you. And Fred and George are being a nightmare."

She gave Harry half a hug and started walking back up the corridor.

"Don't tell Hermione," Ron whispered quickly, "But I think the twins are _literally_ making some sort of bomb at the moment. I'm sure they blew up that old broomshed behind the quiddich pitch. Fred says it's the same fireworks they've always made, but I've never seen them a crater that size before."

Harry stared after Ron as he disappeared around the corner. He could never get used to the Weasley twins' inventions. Harry thought that the twins were a large part of why the Burrow always looked so precarious- they always seemed to be blowing something up.


	9. Snake Pit

Snape was not in a particularly good mood that evening, from which Harry inferred that his meeting with Dumbledore earlier hadn't gone very well. After some consideration though, he guessed it could have been okay, Dumbledore seemed to really get on Snape's nerves sometimes, even when they were having a normal conversation.

But however Snape was feeling, Harry was still surprised that the man spent the evening in his House common room. It had made sense earlier in the week, when the man was helping students with homework, but right now the man had simply sat himself down in a comfy chair with a large pot of tea at his elbow.

The professor had suggested that Harry come along as well, since there was not much else that the boy could get up to. They were both surprised to realise that Harry had completed all of his homework to an acceptable standard. Harry especially, since Snape had threatened to have him doing extra potions work for the entire weekend.

With nothing else to do, Harry found himself being dragged along to one of the open areas of the common room by Fowley. There was already a small group of about six students, boys and girls from the younger three years all sitting on the floor.

There was a series of rings drawn on the floor in white chalk, and at the middle of the smallest was a hole in the ground. Harry heard a clinking noise and looked over to see Blackfort sorting a large bag of gobstones into groups, based on their colours.

"You playing, Potter? I only have half an hour before I have to get back to work, so you had better hurry up if you want a game."

Harry shook his head, "I don't know how to play. I've only had a shot once, and we just had to get it closest to the middle. I've never played it like this."

"It's easy!" Fowley said. "Look, it's a bit like that, but instead of aiming for a jack, you have to get it closest to the pit. Without getting it in of course."

"You can't call it easy," a third year laughed. "Until yesterday, you couldn't even tell which of the stones were yours!"

"Well, now I can. And I haven't lost yet."

The third year rolled her eyes, "You have only played three games since then, you are still near the bottom of the league."

Fowley looked like they were going to launch into an attack on the girl, but was brought up short when Blackfort tapped them both sharply on the head.

"Focus. Why don't you explain to Potter how to use the marbles? It sounds like he doesn't have much of a clue."

Harry would have been offended, but truthfully he was pretty terrible at the game. He had only ever played it against the Weasleys and they had their own odd version of lots of different games all cobbled together into one. He had played against Seamus once as well, but he was on the school team, and Harry hadn't stood a chance.

Harry was grateful that Fowley took the time to show him how to actually cast the stones. Last time, his thumb had been one big bruise because of the technique he had been using. Not that Fowley was the most patient of teachers.

"No, idiot. You are supposed to flick it."

"Are you trying to miss? Sure you don't need new glasses, Potter?"

"Why the hell are you kneeling on the chalk?"

Harry took it with as good a grace as possible, which was a considerably difficult thing to do. Especially with all the little Slytherins giggling away.

Finally, Blackfort was ready. He pushed a set of red gobstones towards Harry with a barely concealed grin.

Harry considered his borrowed robes and was suddenly glad that he had put so much effort into learning cleaning spells the last couple of days.

The battle was fierce and short. And the outcome inevitable.

Harry lost.

He could probably have done worse if he had put some effort into doing so. As it was; three of his gobstones wound up in the 'snake pit'; two were knocked completely out of the ring and the other two had obviously not been seen as enough of a threat to even have been moved out of the way.

There was, however a neat ring of five silver gobstones balanced neatly on the rim of the pit. Harry was grateful that he had at least managed to knock two of his opponent's pieces out of the way. It was embarrassing enough as it was. Fowley was crowing with laughter.

"Don't worry about it, Potter." Blackfort was saying, "I'm the club captain for Hogwarts this year, so you didn't have a hope anyway."

Harry was too busy making use of those new cleaning spells to reply. By the time he could, Blackfort had already reset the game and started playing against one of the third years. He looked like he was determined to fit as many games as possible into his free half hour.

"Apparently, those other schools that are coming are going to have other games contests too. So there's going to be a couple of Gobstones games, some chess league and some other things. Everything apart from quiddich matches apparently."

Harry sighed, it would be everything apart from quiddich. At least there would be something to keep everyone interested who wasn't picked for the competition.

"Look, you can practise here." Fowley said, pointing to a set of rings on the floor, but there was no pit over here. "Professor Snape would only let us make one hole in the floor. He said people would trip over all the time if there was more. It's not fair, people should just be less stupid."

"A noble sentiment."

Harry looked up to see Snape towering above him, as foreboding as ever.

"It's not particularly noble." Harry pointed out.

Snape ignored the second year. "And there are more gobstones rings upstairs, Fowley. Before pointing out my supposed 'unfairness' maybe you ought to consider that I am the first Housemaster to allow Gobstones in the common room."

Fowley scowled, "If people don't trip over this one, I don't see why they would trip over two."

"You wouldn't." Snape said. "How is that potion working for you?"

Harry left the kid and Snape to talk and started to practice with the odd gobstones which didn't fit into a set. The third year girl came over to scrutinise his technique, having just lost against Blackfort.

In one spectacularly bad shot, Harry knocked two of his Gobstones right out of the ring instead of closer to the middle as he had been trying. He heard laughter from next to him and was fairly sure he heard Snape scoff too.

"This game requires practice, Mr Potter. A steady hand, a logical mind, a keen eye for angles. I realise these things might be difficult for a Gryffindor such as yourself."

Harry smirked, a piece of golden information looming up suddenly in his mind.

"I agree, Professor. Some people are just born with these skills."

"It takes dedication too, Potter. Hours of practice." Snape said.

"Yes, Sir."

Snape narrowed his eyes, sensing that Harry was going somewhere with this.

"I think there are a couple of Gryffindors who are good at this too though, Sir. I wouldn't discount all of us."

"The Weasley twins do not play Gobstones, Potter. I would have noticed."

"No, not them. The person I was thinking of is on the Hogwarts team though." Harry said. He saw Blackfort look up from his game, grinning. So did Snape.

"Blackfort. Could you enlighten us on what Potter is babbling on about? He seems to take hours to get to the actual point of most conversations."

"Yes, Sir." Blackfort stood and dusted off his hands on the side of his robes. "The only Gryffindor on the team is probably the third best player we have. He's been on his house team for two years and the school team since last year. Longbottom, Sir."

The name was said in a rush as Blackfort noticed Snape was anything but patiently listening to him.

Snape snorted. "Longbottom is on the Gobstone team? The school must be struggling for players more than I had thought. Blackfort, find any first or second year students that played as children and tutor them in gobstones when they get detention."

"You can't let people play gobstones in detention!" Harry said, scandalised.

"Gobstones until they collapse from exhaustion." Snape said firmly.

Harry couldn't tell if Snape was joking or not. Blackfort just grinned and nodded, agreeing solemnly out loud.

One of Harry's gobstones exploded suddenly and a revolted Fowley was forced to pull a hankie out of their pocket to wipe up the mess on their arm.

"Fowley, if you do not procure some clean handkerchiefs from somewhere, then you are first in line for enforced Gobstones." Snape said, disgusted.

"But then I'd just have more of the same problem!"

"Hey, Potter, you got a minute?"

Harry looked up to see Zabini standing nearby with some notes.

"I asked Professor Snape for help with this earlier and he said I was being lazy and he wouldn't. Apparently it's the same Transfiguration questions you've done- McGonagall gave me extra because I fell asleep in her lesson."

"You fell asleep when she was teaching and you're still alive?" Harry said, standing up. He figured that Snape would probably be arguing with Fowley for a while, and it looked like there was quite a queue for the game too. Harry glanced at the clock and saw it was only a couple of minutes to nine o'clock. He wondered if Fowley was so deep in conversation so that they could stretch when they had to go to bed.

"Mostly," Zabini said. "She wouldn't even give me a detention to do them in since she said I had to do it in my own time."

"That sucks. Hey, won't Snape mind that I'm helping you?"

Zabini gave him a look which said Harry ought to know better by now. "The professor wouldn't help me earlier because it's too easy a cheat. It isn't the cheating he objects to- it's the method."

Harry was confused.

Zabini tried again, "He would probably be annoyed if I asked any of the Slytherins in our year because any of them that would help me, actually like me. I can't ask somebody older, because I don't have very much to trade and my pocket money doesn't come until the end of next week. But I _can_ ask you, because we aren't friends."

"But why did you think I'd help you then?"

"I didn't." Zabini shrugged, but it seemed like a graceful movement the way he did it. Even Snape might not object to the gesture. "But you looked like you would rather be anywhere but over there and it was easier to ask you than to try to read the whole chapter on the subject."

"Oh."

"So, will you help? I can give you some dirt on Malfoy before he gets back from his detention?"

"Uh, no it's okay." Harry grinned, "I'll help anyway. I could do with being away from Snape for a while."

Zabini's homework was fairly easy, and Harry found that it didn't take very much hinting for the other boy to know what to do. Zabini was obviously good at transfiguration, which explained why McGonagall got so annoyed at him.

"Can I ask you a question?" Harry asked, after the work had been finished and they had both leaned back in their seats.

"Why not, go ahead."

"So I saw Pansy Parkinson curtsey earlier…?"

"That was not a question, Potter." Zabini rolled his eyes. "But yes, some of the older families do hold onto those customs. Not many, it has to be said. I cannot imagine bowing to Professor Snape unless he had done me some great service."

Harry considered this. It seemed really weird to him, but he supposed that made sense. He remembered meeting someone in the Leaky Cauldron before first year who had bowed at him a lot. Not that the man should have done, it wasn't like he had done anything.

"Can I ask something else?"

Zabini waved a permitting hand.

"Why is everybody so nice to Fowley?"

Zabini raised an eyebrow, "Fowley is a pain in the ass. Nobody is nice to them."

"You know what I mean. Why none of the Slytherins are jerks to them? Or, what do you all get out of it, I guess?"

"We don't _need_ to be cruel. Besides Fowley is the heir for their family. It is disadvantageous to insult them too much."

"What does that mean, if you're the heir?"

Zabini frowned for a moment. "It used to mean that you were the one who was going to inherit, but the laws have changed over time and now all children inherit equally. Fowley has a younger sister, and they are both due the same upon their parents' deaths. The same way my brother will inherit as much as I do. The Weasleys will have the same, whatever they do have will be split between the entire family. The new laws are part of the reason their generation is so poor."

"Don't say that about the Weasleys!" Harry said, sharply.

"Don't say what?" Zabini tutted. "It is all facts Potter. If their family was smaller, they would likely have more money. That is a fact. I am not blaming them, it is a decision based on different values."

Harry frowned, still rankling at what the other boy had said. He wondered if it was time for him to go back over to the Gobstones matches.

"The Potter family made the opposite decision, of course" Zabini continued, oblivious. He leaned back and closed his eyes, seemingly ready to have a nap- despite it being nine o'clock in the evening. "Your grandparents waited until late in life to have their child, a risky decision, and then only had one. Presumably this means most of their fortune is still intact, but we will not know for certain until you are of age, most likely."

"Who exactly is we?"

"Society, Potter." Zabini smirked, not bothering to open his eyes, "What else do you think purebloods spend their time obsessing over?"

"The Malfoy family went down the same route as the Potters, believing it better to concentrate the wealth. Families like the Blacks and the Fowleys acted similarly but with an 'Heir and a spare' mentality. That was very helpful considering the war, although a lot of families were wiped out nonetheless."

"Huh."

"Do you feel adequately enlightened, Potter?"

"I guess so." Although, thinking about it, Harry wasn't convinced that his question had been answered. On the other hand, Zabini had told him quite a lot about other things and now he knew why there was no family left on his father's side.

"You finally found somebody who would help you at a low cost, Zabini?"

"Not at all, Sir. This is entirely in the spirit of inter-house unity!" Zabini actually managed to open his eyes as a sign of respect for his Housemaster. Or possibly a respect for the punishments of said Housemaster.

"Nice attempt. That might _almost_ work on Professor McGonagall. The Headmaster would pretend he believed you, but it might cause him to trust you less in the future, so be cautious."

"Thank you, Sir."

"Potter, Zabini, it is quarter to ten- you both have fifteen minutes until lights out or you will be losing housepoints."

Zabini stood up with as little effort as possible, strolling towards his dorm. Snape tilted his head to one side, Harry guessed that he was considering hurrying the boy along.

"But it's still a Sunday tomorrow." Harry protested, unsure why he was bothering. "Why do you even have curfews at the weekend? And my room is at least a five minute walk away."

"We have curfews in Slytherin so that our students are awake at the right hours of the day to walk the corridors. Slytherins are actually awake in the mornings to go out on the grounds as they please, to talk in the corridors, to have clubs. I realise this may be a foreign concept to a Gryffindor-"

"Okay, I get it. I'll go to bed."

Snape's eyebrow began to ascend.

"Sir."

It descended again. Harry breathed a sigh of relief. Snape hadn't even made a fuss about him interrupting.

"Goodnight, Mr Potter. Do not forget to set your alarm spell for half past six tomorrow."

"Ugh, yuck. Goodnight, Professor." Harry bowed, in what he hoped was a satirical way, and not a clumsy one, and ran for the door before Snape could say anything else.

He missed the potions master rolling his eyes. As soon as the door had closed and Snape knew that Harry was on the way to his room, Snape went to the door which led to the dormitories. On the way, he intercepted the Head Girl and instructed her to check on the First to fourth year girls who were already supposed to be in bed.

Just the other side of the door to the boy's dormitories, Snape found Zabini leaning against a wall. For a second he worried that the boy was upset, but upon closer inspection the boy seemed to be drifting asleep standing up.

"Zabini!"

The boy opened one eye, slowly.

"Can I help, Professor?"

"Boy, if you are not in bed in two minutes, you will have to go to bed at eight o'clock tomorrow night."

"Oh, could I?"

"Which of course means getting up at five o'clock the morning after. And I might have you practicing Gobstones in your extra time. Apparently the school team is short on players and you did used to play, did you not?"

Zabini grimaced, "Goodnight then, Sir." He disappeared in moments. Snape thought he caught a muttered "Bloody Gobstones."

Snape rolled his eyes. Zabini was too predictable for his own good, although he had chosen the best person to help him with that homework earlier. At least the boy was a good Slytherin, even if it was not off his own merit. Perhaps he ought to make a similar attempt with Crabbe and Goyle, it would be good to expand their influence but they had already worked out a rather clever con with the Malfoy boy. The boy might not have noticed he was being played.

Snape made his way to another room, this one with only one person in. He heard bare feet clattering on stone and rapped on the door.

"Are you decent?" He asked.

"Not usually." Came the reply. The door opened anyway, and Fowley appeared in a bright green dressing gown. "Yes Sir?"

"Why are you not yet asleep?"

"Well you did knock on my door…"

Snape gave Fowley a look, showing he was not in the least fooled.

Fowley coughed and avoided finishing their last sentence. "I was just getting into bed."

"Of course you were. The head girl might check in on you, I did not mention it to her."

The door closed again and Snape returned to the Common room. Once there he walked up to one of the portraits at the side of the room. The tapped the frame three times with his wand and watched it glow where he had hit it. After a few seconds, he heard his own voice talking to him.

'Detention,' it said. 'Put the brooms away. Mr Malfoy…' Snape listened to the end of the speech, smiling slightly to himself. When the voice had stopped, Snape looked at the plaque on the portrait frame, it now read J. Bartell, where seconds earlier had been the name T. Blackfort. The professor smirked, happy that his prefect had taken a sensible course of action and not abused the power of his voice.

Not that that happened often. There were still horror stories whispered amongst the prefects of his house about a student who had thought it would be funny to call out the names of all of the dating couples in Slytherin House to the assembled snakes. Instead of doing it with their own voice, or through an anonymous medium, they had chosen to use the setup with the voice altering portrait frame and the giant snake to project the pairs' identity in their housemaster's tones.

That particular prefect had never quite recovered from Snape's assessment of their sense of humour. None of the other prefects in the last ten years had forgotten either.

Satisfied that his house had been in good hands during his absence, Snape went back to his office. He had lessons to plan. _And_ he had to see if that damned Moody had left any mess.


	10. Explosive Tempers

BANG

"It worked." Harry sat up in bed, settling his glasses onto his face. He looked around the room for any fish, but there seemed to be none flapping about. There was a very distinctive, unpleasant smell, but that was it. Harry got out of bed, looking around for some clothes to change into.

A quarter of an hour later, the door opened and almost knocked Harry over as he struggled to put on one of his socks. Only years of quiddich training prevented him from biting dust.

"Oh, you are almost ready. Good."

Good? That was a strange thing to hear from Snape, especially this early in the morning. Snape waited as Harry stuffed his shoes on next and grabbed his bag from where he had abandoned it on the free bed.

"Done, Sir."

Snape just nodded and led the way out into the corridor. Harry jumped when he realised that there was already a couple of other people there.

"Hi…"

Fowley was standing there scowling with their eyes half shut. Zabini appeared to have fallen asleep on one of the stone benches which was carved into the wall.

"Breakfast time!" Snape said, in a voice which might have been aiming for cheerful. He ignored the three identical glares which were aimed at his back.

Things seemed a bit brighter in the Great Hall. Harry was happy to notice, from his reflection in a polished, silver teapot, that his hair was actually returning to its usual shade. He had been worried that he might have identified the wrong potion yesterday- that his hair would have been dyed all over again.

He caught Snape's eye in the reflection and saw himself go bright red, clashing horribly with his hair.

"Um, I wasn't-"

"Of course not."

Harry ducked his head, determined to not look back up until he had died of embarrassment.

There was a put-upon sigh from the other side of the table.

"Do I really have to come to the Sunday brewing session, Professor? I'm going to be doing alright in classes from now on. And we're only a few weeks into term."

Snape snorted and put down the empty cup from his second coffee, "You have impeccable timing as always, Fowley. You are coming to the extra credit session because you have obviously been making up everything since first year. I received an owl from your grandfather yesterday evening and it is his wish that you bring your grade back up, now that we are aware you are not merely incompetent."

"Thanks a lot, Potter." Fowley tried to kick Harry under the table, but their legs were too short and they only succeeded in scuffing his knee.

"What do I have to do with it?" Harry sputtered, shuffling back on the bench so that Fowley would pretty much have to crawl under the table to do any damage. "I have to go to the stupid club too."

"This is not Potions Club." Snape pointed out. "This is extra credit. You should be grateful that I am letting you join in and not giving you extra detention work to do."

"Wait, even _I_ get extra credit for this?" Harry asked.

"Technically, you will be making up for one of the zeros you have already earned this year. It will be a quiet session, there will only be the three of you there."

Zabini's head snapped up and he dropped his fork. "I did _not_ agree to remedial potions!"

Snape frowned at him, "Good, because you are not invited. I was referring to Mr Diggory." Harry glanced behind them and saw that Cedric was sitting in his usual seat at Hufflepuff- despite there only being maybe thirty people in the Hall this early in the morning. "I believe you have a detention this morning anyway, Mr Zabini. Until then, perhaps your time would be best spent in ensuring all of your homework is of an acceptable standard for tomorrow?"

Zabini grumbled. Detention with Professor Moody was not the way anybody wanted to spend their Sunday.

As Harry watched, Diggory checked his watch, grabbed another slice of toast and fished under the table for his bag. A glance at Snape showed that the man was forgoing a third cup of coffee and getting ready to go as well. Harry quickly stuffed a couple of apples into his bag- who knew when they would eventually stop for lunch?

Harry found himself idly resenting Fowley's dirty shoes, since they had left marks on both his trousers and the dungeon floor that he had cleaned so carefully in his last detention.

Snape made a funny noise when he saw Harry cast a quick cleaning spell at Fowley's feet and the floor beneath.

Cedric had been waiting outside when they arrived, just brushing the toast crumbs off his hands. He set up his cauldron at the bench next to Harry, both of them behind Fowley. The Hufflepuff seemed to know what he was doing and collected all of his ingredients quickly and was preparing them before Harry even had his book out on the desk.

Snape wrote instructions up on the blackboard for Fowley to follow and thoughtfully gave Harry a list of all the Potions he had earned a zero on in the last year which were a part of their OWL coursework. There were a lot.

Harry picked one which he remembered had been pretty easy. It had been ruined only because Neville's potion had exploded as Harry had been about to bottle his own and it had been contaminated. He took his book with him to collect the right ingredients from the student storage cupboard. He walked into Fowley by accident as the kid was struggling with about seven jars.

"Sure you've got the right colours?" Harry joked as he forcibly took a couple of the jars off the indignant kid and over to the table.

"Very funny," Fowley said. "And I've got a colour chart, so yes."

"Huh, that's smart." Harry went back to the cupboard, double checking everything before pulling it down. It would be just his luck to blow up his second attempt at the potion too.

As Harry settled down to preparing the base for his potion, he noticed that Snape was tidying out his own store cupboard at the very front of the room, behind his desk.

"So how did you wind up here? I thought this was remedial potions?" Harry asked Cedric. It wasn't until he had said it that he realised the other boy might be offended.

Cedric saw how worried he looked and seemed to take pity on him. "Yeah, I need all the help I can get in potions. It's always been my worst subject. Somehow I scraped an O in my OWL, so now I have to do NEWT too."

Harry laughed, "You can't be that bad if you got an Outstanding!"

Cedric gave him a look, "You'd be getting O's too if you went to two extra labs a week, an extra credit session and wrote a third more for each essay. I think I'll have to give up on the ideal of getting anything past Acceptable in my NEWTS though. There is no way I'm doing this to myself for another two years."

"Yeah, that does sound pretty awful."

"I was thinking of entering myself for the tournament though, if it isn't only open to the seventh years. It would be a good excuse to drop out of this and focus on the subjects I'd need for that."

"You might find that you need your potions knowledge for the tournament Diggory." Snape called from the cupboard.

"With all respect, Sir, I don't think there's been a single brewing challenge in the past six tournaments."

"Ah, but is that not all the more reason to have one now? And after all, usually the task can be accomplished through many branches of magic."

Harry snorted and everyone glanced over at him. "Sorry, I was just imagining somebody trying to use astronomy to get past one of Hagrid's Blast Ended Skrewts."

Cedric pulled a face and Harry guessed that the sixth years had the misfortune of dealing with the beasts too.

"Yeah, that might not be the best. But it might be handy in other situations."

Harry blinked, "I can think of literally no situation, bar being turned into a centaur, where knowing astronomy would help me."

Cedric laughed, "That should all start to make more sense this year. You move on a bit from memorising moons, and you start learning about how you can judge when potions will be more effective. Which types of spell work better at what time of year, the power that comes from eclipses and that sort of thing."

He caught Harry staring at him. "I told you- potions is my worst subject. Watch that cauldron, you'll need to give it an extra half-stir because it's too hot."

Harry huffed, doing as he was told, but not really sure about why he should be doing it that way. And not interested to ask. All he had to do was turn in an Acceptable potion.

"Have you met Hermione?" Harry asked, "I get the feeling you two would get on. What's your stance on House-Elves?"

"House-elves?"

"Don't worry about it."

"Potter!"

Harry looked up reluctantly from his ground Doxy fangs.

"Yes Sir?"

"Would you care to explain?" Snape's voice was vicious, in a way that it hadn't been for days now.

Harry frowned, "Would you care to elaborate? –Sir."

Snape appeared in the door of his store cupboard, eyes narrowed with distrust. "Some of my ingredients are missing, Potter. I want to know what you have taken and what you have done with them. Now."

Harry threw his hands up in the air.

"You always assume it's me. When am I supposed to have nicked anything? You know where I am literally all the time."

"You were sneaking around when I caught you. For all I know you were creating a diversion for your little friends."

"What diversion? Nobody even noticed anything until we were all in the Great Hall the next morning!"

Snape came out of the cupboard, arms folded, glaring at Harry.

Harry's potion started making worrying noises. These were ignored by both Snape and the Gryffindor. Cedric tried to get their attention, but they were too busy glaring at each other to notice. He hurriedly tipped the ground fangs into the pot and stirred it, leaning across to turn down the flames under his own cauldron.

"You have had all weekend to distract me for long enough for your little friends to sneak in here and steal what they wanted."

"What did they want? You still haven't told me!

"I expect you know very well what is missing. The same things you stole from me two years ago. Did you think I would not notice?"

"I don't understand!" Harry said, thinking of a certain firework incident in second year and trying to not look guilty. "Look, as far as I know, my friends have been too busy with detention and homework to get up to anything. I've hardly spoken to either of them in days, _and_ I think that they were caught at the same time as me."

Cedric was trying frantically to slice some kneazle liver one handed, while dropping a tiny amount of armadillo bile into his cauldron.

"Professor, I can't do this! Fowley, can't you help, for Merlin's sake?"

Fowley took in the bedlam and reluctantly started walking around the desk to get closer to the cauldrons. Snape and Harry were too focussed to notice.

"It would only take one person to set that joke up, Potter. What were the other two doing?"

"I'm flattered that you think I can cast those spells, Professor. The others sorted all of that, I was just tidying up after they left, since I had the best disguise."

There was silence for a moment.

Well, not immediately. There was a hissing noise for a couple of seconds. At first Harry thought it was Snape making the noise, but then he saw the man turning, wide eyed to look at the cauldrons on the desks.

Then there was silence for a moment.

Cedric took half a step back.

"Oh, shit."

Then everyone moved.

Cedric threw himself backwards, bringing his wand up in a silent shield charm. It was a good thing he did, because the next instant the cauldron he had been about to add an ingredient to had erupted in a foul smelling, three foot, yellow geyser.

Snape's wand appeared in his hand and he cast a faster Cauldron Containment charm than he had ever needed for one of Neville Longbottom's potions disasters.

Unfortunately, the perfectly cast charm was knocked slightly off course, and only managed to cover one of the cauldrons. Professor Snape was barrelled to the ground, landing hard beneath two of his students. Both of them appeared to be made out of elbows.

Fowley choked from the force they had been pulled to the ground with by the neck of their expensively tailored robes.

Harry found himself sandwiched uncomfortably between a struggling Fowley and a furious Snape. Embarrassed, he rolled out of the way, before poking his head up over the top of the desk to survey the damage.

"Protego!" Harry snapped back to the floor, pushing down the two Slytherins from where they were almost sitting.

Snape grunted as he received yet another elbow to the solar plexus.

Something splatted on the outside of the spelled shield and Harry grimaced and directed the gunk to the floor, before he cancelled the shield and banished the gunk. Sheepishly, he stood up, pulling Fowley by the arm and offering a hand to Snape who stared at it for a second, before hauling himself up by the edge of the workbench.

Cedric was already banishing the mess from his own cauldron, before it could spread any further across the floor.

Looking at his own cauldron, Harry was thankful to see the Containment Charm still in place. Glancing through the transparent shimmer of the spell, Harry laughed.

"It looks like this was the only one that didn't explode."

With a few waves of his wand, Snape had banished the whole mess.

"Is everyone uninjured?"

The three students checked themselves quickly and when they had each counted all four limbs and their own heads, nodded back at the professor.

Snape took a deep breath.

"Mr Diggory, for your cool head, twenty points to Hufflepuff."

Cedric nodded, still quite pale.

Snape turned to Harry, who prepared to lose a great many points for Gryffindor. "Potter, ten points to Gryffindor for trying to help."

Harry grimaced, if he hadn't done anything then all three of them would be covered with, at the very least, the beginnings of a Forgetfulness Potion and the base for a Hiccoughing Solution. But he supposed that it was still better than losing points.

"I don't get how these points work out." Fowley said, still rubbing their funny bone.

Snape smirked back, "It's a largely arbitrary system. Ridiculously easy to influence."

By some common consensus, they all took a seat.

"So what've you lost?" Cedric asked cautiously. "Nothing we might have used in classes by mistake, I take it?"

Fowley blinked at the prefect, astounded by his audacity. Even the older Slytherins didn't dare to poke Professor Snape when he had just calmed down.

Snape fixed him with a look. "No, Mr Diggory. I should hope that all of my NEWT students can recognise Boomslang skin and Bicorn Horn when they see them. And all other students know they are not to enter my stores on pain of expulsion." Snape swung around to glare at Harry instead.

Harry however, wasn't listening.

"Boomslang skin and Bicorn horn?" He repeated. He knew his friends hadn't stolen the ingredients. And Snape seemed convinced that somebody had. Which meant…

"Sir, that store leads straight through to your office, doesn't it?"

The two of them looked at each other for a long moment.

"We will see the Headmaster immediately." Snape decided, standing up so suddenly that his stool scraped across the stone floor.

The three students jumped up as well, gathering their things together, more out of habit than anything else.

Snape scrutinised them carefully. "Fowley, you are going back to the common room. No excuses!" He held up a hand to stop the kid from complaining. "You are already on watch. If you do not do exactly as I say, then all of your free periods will be forfeit until Christmas."

Fowley scowled, but stormed out of the classroom anyway. Harry doubted the kid would do as they had been told for long, but maybe the Slytherins could keep them out of trouble.

"Diggory, I would like you to come with us. Your input would be helpful, and I may need you to keep an eye on Potter later."

"I don't have a clue what is going on, Sir. But it sounds important, I'll do my best to help."

"Good. Potter, I need you to pretend that you blew those cauldrons up on purpose."

"I didn't do anything to the stupid cauldrons!" Harry hissed.

Snape gave him an appraising look. "That should do it. I will walk quickly, try to stay well within range of the spell as we move through the castle. But look as though you are tripping up every so often. That will maintain the illusion more than anything. Are you both ready?"

Both boys gave cautious nods and without another word, Snape strode out of the classroom, slamming the door open in front of him.

"If he keeps up at this speed, then I'm going to be falling over the whole way." Cedric muttered. "He doesn't half have a flair for the dramatic."

Harry thought that the walk to the Headmasters office would almost have been fun, if it had not been for the true purpose behind their visit. Looking sullen every time Snape span around to spit insults at him was entertaining enough, and once he felt brave enough to throw an insult back (much to the horror of some first years).

Snape had sent Diggory into the Great Hall as they passed, so that he could fetch Professor McGonagall. Harry pretended to trip near the top of the staircase, so that the other two could catch up. He didn't really want them to have to explain everything twice.

When McGonagall arrived, she was spitting tacs. Harry thought she might actually want to expel him, from the look she was giving him.

"Of all the fool-headed things you have done, Potter!"

McGonagall spotted a few Ravenclaws dithering on their way down the stairs. "Move along!"

She turned back on Harry, "To deliberately explode a volatile potion? Never, in all of my days-"

"For Helga's sake, Potter. Get up, there is nothing wrong with you."

Harry thought that that was a bizarre oath for the Potions professor to use, McGonagall seemed to too. Her sharp eyes widened, and she seemed lost for words for a second but she recovered skilfully.

"Come along, Diggory. We will be needing your word as an eyewitness."

The rest of the way was less fun. Although it was funny to see the third year Ravenclaw bullies scatter in terror before Professor Snape. The gargoyle outside Dumbledore's office seemed to be surprised to see so many people.

"Kiwi Kelpies." McGonagall announced to the guardian. As they started to enter the stairwell, there was the sound of feet slapping against the flagstones and two very familiar people careered around the corner.

"Wait, hold the door!"

Harry, who had gone through the door first, in his role of escorted prisoner, popped his head back around past the gargoyle.

"Hermione? Ron?"

"Oh, Harry!" Hermione looked surprised to see the unlikely group who was trying to get into the headmaster's office. Ron on the other hand, seemed to be having issues getting his eyes to focus on anything. McGonagall seemed torn between examining the redhead and getting them all upstairs as quickly as possible.

Snape decided the matter by grabbing Ron by the arm and stepping onto the spiralling staircase. Harry, of course had no choice but to follow, and the others had no reason to stay in the corridor without them.

The opening to the staircase closed off behind Hermione with the scrape of stone on stone.


	11. Priorities

Inside Dumbledore's office, there was pandemonium as six people piled inside and tried to arrange themselves in front of the headmaster's desk. Dumbledore himself, was already seated at his desk, surrounded by neat piles of parchment and appeared mildly surprised by the interruption. Always the host, he conjured a few extra chairs for his guests, which were mostly ignored.

"It seems like every year, I meet with most of you to discuss something or other. We seem to have a new addition today. Mr Diggory, I am surprised to see you. How come you to be involved with our more… adventurous students?"

"Diggory is unimportant." Snape snapped. Cedric managed to not appear particularly offended, although Hermione and Harry were offended enough on his behalf. "We are here urgently, headmaster. Once more, it is about that psychotic paranoid you have hired."

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. To be fair, Snape did tend to insult pretty much everyone he came across.

" _Professor_ Moody. Headmaster-"

"He cursed Ron!" Hermione interrupted, so Harry knew it must be serious.

"Miss Granger?"

Dumbledore glanced at her quickly, ignoring Snape's indignant muttering, before turning his full attention to Ron, who had been dumped unceremoniously into a nearby chair when Snape had marched up to Dumbledore's desk.

"We went down to breakfast late in the Great Hall, and then on the way up the stairs, Ron started feeling funny. Every time he tried to walk anywhere he'd start to float off the ground and I had to pull him back down. We supposed it wasn't a medical thing and it was just another of the tw- of those pranks that keep happening, so we thought we would try Professor Moody instead of the Hospital Wing. And we were walking nearer his classroom, of course." Hermione stopped and bit her lip. Harry suspected she was thinking about how to continue.

"I do not doubt your judgement of the situation, Miss Granger, please continue. Why do you believe it was Professor Moody who caused Mr Weasley's current state?"

"Well, we managed to get along to the classroom. There were some students already there, in detention, I think- three Slytherins."

Snape and Harry shared a look. That must be Zabini after he had left them, along with the two others (Malfoy and Nott?) who had been given detention by Moody the day before.

"They told us that Professor Moody had just gone into his office and Ron sort of just went straight in. He did knock first, of course, but he didn't wait or anything." Hermione pulled a face. "The door slammed shut, and I heard some shouting. Then a couple of minutes later, Ron came out with Professor Moody, but he acted sort of… drunk. We just left of course, and then the Slytherins followed us out, saying that they had been dismissed early. But the strange thing is that Ron doesn't remember any of it. And he's still acting so odd, but he does seem to have stopped floating off, maybe the charm just wore off."

By then, everyone was watching Ron, who had stood up and walked over to Fawkes the phoenix. The boy was stroking the bird carefully, smiling blissfully at the way the plume of feathers on the bird's head popped back up after he flattened them.

Fawkes gave his owner a look of pure resignation.

Ron looked over at Harry dreamily, and words tumbled out, "He wants t'see you, y'know." He turned back to the phoenix.

"Who?" Harry blinked, "Moody?"

" _He_ does." Ron didn't even turn around.

Dumbledore frowned and then addressed Snape. "Do you believe we can deal with this incident first, Severus? Or is your problem of a more urgent nature?"

"It is somewhat urgent, Headmaster. But it would be prudent to ensure Weasley is not totally addled first. Minerva, he is one of yours."

McGonagall tutted at them, "Mr Weasley." She said, sharply. "Do come over here and sit down!"

Ron seemed concerned by her tone, and left the bird immediately. He was having issues walking in a straight line and had to focus in order to sit down between the arms on his chair. "Wha's wrong?" His words were slightly slurred and Harry was reminded of Uncle Vernon after a long day at work and more than one brandy.

"Weasley, you will tell me about what has happened to you since breakfast."

Ron blinked at the floor, obviously trying to think. After a long moment, the furrows on his forehead deepened. The rest of the room leaned forward in anticipation.

"I think," he said, testing the way the words sounded. "I think old tables are stupid. I mean, what's with the feet? Are they all just tranfirreg- transfigured bad? Like how my mirror still had those ears?" He looked at McGonagall. "You remember the ears?"

"I remember the ears, Mr Weasley."

Ron nodded, happy again.

"Is he going to be alright?" Harry asked quietly "Shouldn't we get him to the hospital wing, or…"

Dumbledore frowned and made a complicated movement with his wand. He did not seem overly concerned by whatever he had discovered.

"There is no pressing issues with Mr Weasley, and nothing which our Madame Pomfrey cannot fix." Dumbledore smiled reassuringly. "She has yet to meet her match with student curses. Severus, you have an idea what it is which might have aggravated Alastor?"

"You recall, Headmaster, that I told you my suspicions about Moody before? That he was alleged to use unforgivables in his classes, which you say you permitted him to do. That he used the imperius on the students, which even you could not permit him to do. And that he was acting oddly around certain students in my house, and in others, whose parents were of a certain inclination."

Dumbledore nodded, "I do indeed remember the last couple of days, Severus. I am not senile yet."

"Also that Professor Moody decided to search my office the other day, claiming that it was on your orders. May I ask if that is true?"

Snape didn't even sound offended by the idea, Harry thought. He made it sound like that was something that Dumbledore was totally allowed to do.

"I promise you that I would neither require, nor permit Alastor to take any such action. I do not believe he could possibly misinterpret my words to reach that conclusion either." Dumbledore was solemn.

Snape nodded, "Then today, I discovered during my Remedial Potion class, that there were some distinctive ingredients which have disappeared from my storeroom. Of course, my immediate thought was that there was a student responsible, since that has been the case before." Harry and Hermione attempted to look innocent. Ron attempted to pull some threads out of a rug on the floor.

"However, if the ingredients remain the same, circumstances lead me to a different conclusion. The ingredients were lacewing flies, boomslang skin. Not common ingredients, you'll agree."

"So you believe Alastor is brewing…?"

"It's not Moody, Sir. It's Mr Crouch, and he's brewing Polyjuice potion." Harry blurted the information out in his urgency, they had to make Dumbledore understand as quickly as possible.

Hermione's hands flew to her mouth as she took the information in. Dumbledore pushed his glasses back up his nose, the better to see Harry and Snape who were standing next to each other.

"I agree that Polyjuice might be a reasonable explanation for odd behaviour. And it would be an intelligent move to choose Alastor if one was going to impersonate a member of the faculty, but if there is a false Moody, then the real one must still be here, as a fresh source for Polyjuice. Those ingredients which are of a human origin last no longer than a day. The real question is how long has our imposter been here?

"Bins," Ron grinned, drumming on the floor with both hands.

"Professor Binns?" McGonagall was completely puzzled by the random word.

"No! No, he means dustbins!" Hermione said, excitedly. "During the summer, do you remember? Mr Weasley had to go and help him deal with some intrusion. They said it was a false alarm, but what if it happened then?"

Snape nodded, "There is some merit to that conclusion, Miss Granger. It has been many years since Moody has been in regular contact with anybody. Nobody expected him to be the same man he was when he retired."

Harry thought that it was unfair to give Hermione all of the praise when it seemed Ron had come to the conclusion first. He didn't feel he could say anything, however, his own interpretation had been that Ron thought they should search the Professor's office bin.

"I can understand how you think this might have happened," Dumbledore agreed. "But you must explain to me, Harry, or Severus, how you came to the conclusion that it is Bartemius who is impersonating Alastor. I cannot imagine why he should want to do such a thing. Alastor did once arrest a member of his family, but Barty is the last person who might be upset about that incident."

Snape took an angry breath, "He saw it on an enchanted-"

"Sir!" Harry was scandalised that Snape would give away his secret.

"Mister Potter, some of us believe in prioritising matters. Your little secret is hardly more important than the safety of the school and the witches and wizards who reside here." Snape was cutting, but perhaps not so much as he might have been.

Harry, feeling chastened, decided to explain for himself, rather than let Snape give everyone the wrong end of the wand.

"I have this map, right? And it kind of shows Hogwarts, and er, everyone in it. And it shows up all of their names even if they're in disguise. So it shows up people under invisibility cloaks and animaguses and stuff."

"Animagi." Hermione whispered under her breath.

"Right, so when we saw that Barty Crouch was supposed to be in Professor Snape's office, we got down there and Moody was in there under an invisibility cloak. Anyway, today we realised that it was really easy to get into the potions store through that office, and all those Polyjuice ingredients were missing, so we figured that was it and came up here."

"After exploding two cauldrons." Snape added nastily, irritated by being interrupted.

"Well, not on purpose," Harry said, "And it's not like anybody was hurt."

"And where exactly did you procure this map from, Potter?" McGonagall asked, disapproving.

"Uh, from some friends?" Harry tried.

"It sounds like the sort of item Gryffindor troublemakers would find a lot of use for, if you ask me." Snape said, silkily.

"Humph," McGonagall snorted, "Which troublemakers?"

"I can think of a pair." Dumbledore's eyes twinkled, "Or four, perhaps."

McGonagall's eyes flitted from Snape, to Harry, and to Ron in quick succession.

"Hang on!" Cedric said, interrupting for the first time. "You don't think that those twins could have had a map with everywhere and everyone on it all this time? Those bas- I mean, that explains so much. I wondered how they managed to follow me around in third year for that whole week! I spent three whole days in the library researching what kind of tracking charm they had put on me and I couldn't find a single thing!"

"It is concerning how few students use the library of their own volition to actually do their schoolwork." McGonagall said dryly to Snape, who smirked back.

"And Professor McGonagall?" Dumbledore asked mildly, turning away from Cedric, serious again. "What is it that has brought you here today?"

"Severus and I had spoken about this issue with Professor Moody before. We had that issue with him transfiguring Mr Malfoy- in the second week of term, no less. And this business with the _Imperius_ is unconscionable, Albus."

"Ferrety, ferrety Ferretface" Ron burbled.

Dumbledore drummed his fingers on his desk. "It simply does not make any sense that _Bartemius_ would do any such thing. He is practically married to his job, these days. What could possibly make him want to take up a teaching post at Hogwarts and cast Unforgivable curses on children? Besides that, he has continued with his post at the ministry, how do you suggest he has been occupying both jobs at once?"

McGonagall shook her head, "Even when speaking with Severus, I had believed that there was no credence to this idea that Barty Crouch might be the responsible party. It is hard to imagine that might not have been Alastor who has been teaching this term. I believed that we knew him better than that, Albus. He seems so much the same man, with all his talk of honour and justice and vigilance."

"He does go on about bravery, and loyalty a lot." Harry put forward, "I always thought that was a bit weird."

"Now _that_ sounds like the Alastor I know." Dumbledore sighed, "I do not know what to make of this."

"There were always two sides to be loyal to, Headmaster." Snape said darkly. "And there was a Crouch who was firmly on the other side."

There was silence for a moment and Harry and Hermione shared a nonplussed look.

"Barty's son died years ago. He was buried in the grounds of Azkaban prison. Bartemius did not even attend the funeral." Dumbledore stood up from his throne-like chair and walked quickly over to a cabinet underneath one of the large windows. He returned a moment later with a large roughly shaped stone bowl, with runes carved into the rim. Placing it onto his desk, he began to stir the silvery contents with the tip of his wand. Harry was glad that Ron was too low down to see inside, as Ron was likely to just stick his whole hand in with the way he was acting.

After a few moments, the image of a young man's face began to appear in the air over the top of the basin.

Harry gasped involuntarily. "I know him!"

His eyes locked with Dumbledore's piercing blue. "I've seen him before- it was in a dream, I think. Just this summer, he was in some old house." He paused, "I don't know much more, there might have been a snake and maybe Wormtail was there… Ugh, I can't think!"

Harry frowned, unconsciously rubbing at his scar while he tried to remember. After a few long moments, he shook his head. "It's no use, I can't remember. Sorry."

"Is this what happens every year when the three of you disappear and everything goes mad?"

Hermione smiled back at Cedric. "I suppose so. Usually the Defence teacher is up to something dodgy."

"Professor Lupin wasn't dodgy, he's been our best Professor so far!" Harry said.

Hermione raised an eyebrow, "Compared to an idiot, somebody who practises one of the worst curses in existence on children and somebody who was literally half Voldemort?"

"Point taken." Harry said, "He was still a really good teacher though, even if he had a- a little problem."

Snape made a small growling noise, but thankfully declined to comment on Lupin, in order to keep an eye on Ron, who had stood up. "Weasley, are you alright?"

"Do you recognise that man, Ron?" Hermione asked, seeing that the redhead was peering up at the face.

"He thinks you're less fuzzy." Ron said, very seriously to Dumbledore. "He thought you'd stay fuzzy, but you're bigger too. 'Nd the walls aren't too thick, 'Nd he wants to see Harry."

"Thank you, Mr Weasley." Dumbledore nodded to him, and then to himself, seeming to come to a decision. He turned to Hermione. "Miss Granger, I would like to thank you both for your help. You were right to bring Mr Weasley to me first. Unfortunately, although I believe he has merely been hit with a Confundus charm, we do seem to be neglecting him a little too much. Could I ask you to escort him to the Hospital wing? I promise you I will see to it that you are both informed of today's happenings."

Dumbledore walked around to Ron and clapped a hand on his shoulder, "Thank you for those warnings, Mr Weasley. I will remember to be watchful of those scrying techniques."

Hermione came over and took Ron by the arm, and the two of them staggered out of the office and allowed the staircase to guide them back down.

The moment they were sure the two Gryffindors had left the room, McGonagall burst into speech. Obviously a weight was taken off her chest now that she knew Ron was on his way to being helped. "Heavens, Albus. What are we to do? If he has Alastor's eye then he will know the moment we go looking for him. And he has that foe-glass to boot. There is no possibility that we will be able to apprehend the man, whoever he is, in front of the students. We shall have to stage a staff meeting, draw him-"

Snape shook his head, and interrupted, "Have you forgotten that we had a meeting yesterday? If we hold another so soon, he is bound to be suspicious and arrive on his guard."

"And we cannot risk doing any harm to the other professors." Dumbledore added. "They are not warriors, and it would not be fair to force them into such a situation, especially if we were to do so with no warning. We would be exposing them to too much harm."

Harry hummed, "So what you need is to get him somewhere out of the way? And you need an excuse to have a load of professors there too? The ones who will know what to do if all hell breaks loose."

Snape rolled his eyes, "I am so glad that you are capable of listening Pot-"

"So you need a big distraction. Oh, sorry Sir. I didn't mean to interrupt! You're going to have to wait until he's somewhere out of the way, and then have some sort of incident which means you'll need loads of teachers to help deal with it."

"Do you actually have a point?"

"Yes, Sir. We need to have a fight." Harry said, earnestly.

"Really, a fight? Between who exactly?"

"Between me and Diggory."

Snape raised an eyebrow, "Between yourself and Diggory? And what would I be doing during this supposed fight? You don't imagine it would be normal for me to stand 5 feet away while two students were duelling and not take any action?"

"Well we're going to be busy pretending to fight. I was kind've hoping that you could pretend to be knocked out, and then you could be ready to deal with him when he turns up. And I reckon a student attacking a teacher is a good excuse for loads of teachers to turn up and for students to be kept away, don't you?"

"There might be some value to that idea, Potter." Snape held up a placating hand to fend off McGonagall who had made an outraged noise.

"However, you are severely mistaken if you believe that we would allow you to be anywhere near this mess. You are only a child and there is no reason for you to be involved at all."

"Except, Sir, if _you_ are going to be there, then he does have to be there." Cedric pointed out. "Sort of, if you don't want it to be suspicious. And we have already set up quite a good reason for us to have a fight. And, well everyone knows you don't like each other, Sir. So it wouldn't be strange for you to have a fight either."

"And what exactly are we going to say you are fighting about, Diggory?" McGonagall asked.

"Well, about half the school already knows that we blew up those cauldrons in the potions extra credit class. It's not too much of a stretch to imagine Potter had something to do with that."

"Hey!"

"Be fair, you did. Also, if I saw somebody attack a professor in front of me, then I like to believe that I would do something about it." Cedric spread his hands out in a delicate shrug, "Besides, if we're throwing spells all over the place, then we're hardly going to be explaining anything, are we. Just some loud, vague shouting about people cursing professors should do the trick."

The professors did not appear remotely convinced.

Sorry for the long break, and for this chapter being so dialogue heavy, I promise there will be a lot more movement in the next. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, there's still quite a way to go before this story is through! Let me know what you think, I'm always delighted to get reviews.


	12. Marble and Dust

"We need some excuse to do it and if he's looking for me anyway, then he's way more likely to come across us. It's the best way to draw him in quickly. And you can watch exactly where he is the whole time from the map, and turn up if things start to get a bit… hairy."

"May we see this map?" Dumbledore enquired, raising a bushy eyebrow at Harry.

Harry swallowed, it went against his instincts to show the map to any teacher. When he had used it last year, Snape had tried to confiscate it without even knowing what it was. Then Lupin _had_ known what it was and had taken it away for the rest of the year. He was still fairly shocked that Snape had let him keep it this year.

"It is after all, Harry, for the good of the school."

Snape made an odd noise and Harry glanced at him curiously. The man had lost his usual poker face, and looked sort of apprehensive.

Harry supposed that he was being a little ridiculous, of course his little map wasn't more important than making sure innocent little first years weren't dragged into the middle of all of this. Or if Moody had a way to be invisible, then they wouldn't be caught out for very long.

He brought the map out of his pocket and activated it quietly, before handing it over to Dumbledore who pored over it with interest. The old man spread it out over his desk and used his long fingers to trace out different passageways and staircases on the parchment, he hovered briefly over the names of the seven of them in the office.

"Think of what those men could have done if they had been together these last thirteen years." McGonagall marvelled.

Snape practically growled in his anger and spun away from the table, stalking away a few feet, before feeling the tether spell tug on Harry. He made an annoyed noise, and began to pace in the few feet of room he had, with his face set in one of his stony expressions.

Harry felt an unfamiliar wave of grief for his father, and also in a way for Professor Lupin and Sirius. He hadn't known any of the men for long, but from what he had heard of the 'marauders' from Sirius's letters over the summer, they were far different from the carefree boys they sounded like they had been.

Dumbledore hummed suddenly, and everyone returned their attention to him. He tapped one of his fingers on the map. "You see, here is Alastor in his office, and his classroom is empty, as we have heard."

Dumbledore nodded, absently and all watched as his hand slit over the parchment and came to rest over another part of the map entirely. "But, do you see? Down on the back stairway to the dungeons, we have a Barty Crouch. You were right- Harry, Severus. Unless there is something very wrong with the enchantments here, I cannot understand why the map should choose to add this name."

"But how on earth could he be here?" Cedric asked, although even he seemed to be surprised that he had asked. "Sorry, but you did say he was in Azkaban. And dead."

"We can only speculate at the moment." Dumbledore said, "We know now that it is indeed possible for one to escape Azkaban with the correct motivation. Any escape would have been over ten years ago, now. Who knows where he might have been hiding."

"Or Bartemius could be the man we are looking for," McGonagall said. "Instead of some ridiculous ghost story we have cooked up out of almost no real evidence."

"Bartemius has yet to miss a single day of work in his career." Dumbledore told her. "He has been acting slightly out of character lately, but he must be himself. If nothing else, there are protections on the ministry to ensure the verification of Members of the Wizengamot. Mr Crouch must have been through the _Thief's Downfall_ three times this week alone."

It seems to me that this does not matter." Snape said bluntly. "We should be taking these measures in order to apprehend any man who had cast an Unforgivable Curse on a child. We have to be prepared to deal with one of three men, all of whom are well trained in the Dark arts and in Defence. This person has access to both Mad-Eye Moody's enchanted eye and invisibility cloak as well as any number of dark detectors in his office."

"And we have five of us, an invisibility cloak and a magical map." Harry added, trying to compare their odds.

"You have an invisibility cloak?" Cedric asked, he raised an eyebrow, "The Weasley's didn't have that too, did they?"

Harry shook his head, "No, they'd rather use Peeves. It's more of a… family heirloom, I guess."

Cedric nodded, understandingly. "Sounds a lot more useful than our heirloom. We've got a fossilised Nundu claw. Dad loves it. Wouldn't help you do anything fun though."

"Oh!" Harry exclaimed, "Dam- Oh, uh, I forgot. The cloak won't work."

"Are you certain?" Dumbledore asked, "It is a very unique cloak."

Harry felt a blush rise on his face. "Well, you know the other day, when you caught me in the dungeon, Professor?"

Snape narrowed his eyes, but nodded.

"Well, we kind of ran into Moody on the way down there. We thought he'd seen our feet, since it's getting a bit cramped if more than one of us is in there. But no, he called us all out by name. He said it wasn't past curfew, so he wouldn't take points, but…"

"I always said Alastor had an inappropriate teaching method." McGonagall muttered.

Snape looked at her, exasperated. "He has been cursing students! How was this more inappropriate?"

McGonagall humphed.

"Anyway," Harry said, slightly unnerved by the professors, "What we were saying was that if Sna-Professor Snape- is going to be there, and I figure you are going to need him- then I'll have to be there. Because if the guy is looking for me anyway, he might just run away from whatever you try to do to come and find me. If he sees Professor Snape without me, then he'll know that I have to be in the dungeons and he can just wander around down there until he spots me through one of the walls."

Dumbledore was nodding slightly, but McGonagall's lips were incredibly thin.

"And Mr Diggory? There is no reason to expose him to this madness. He is only a child, he has barely completed his OWLs for goodness sake."

"Ouch." Diggory said, good naturedly. "I thought it might make more sense for Potter to have a fight with me. He isn't the sort to take on two Professors in a duel at once, and he wouldn't last long against Professor Snape."

"What you are forgetting, yet again," Snape pointed out, "Is that this man is prepared to use unforgivable curses and we have no idea why they are looking for Potter. We have to consider the possibility that they will attempt to use an unforgivable curse on Potter."

"Well luckily whoever it is taught me how to throw off the Imperius. That Pain one doesn't seem like it would do any permanent damage in the few seconds it'd take you to get there, and I got lucky with the other one before."

All of the adults turned as one and advanced towards Harry in what appeared to be a choreographed movement, all berating him. Their words of anger (Snape), reprimand (McGonagall) and disapproval (Dumbledore) all blending into one.

Harry must have looked sufficiently admonished after a minute, when the three of them drew back, with a final "Curb that ridiculous Gryffindor impulsiveness, or I will make you." From Snape.

Harry shared a wide eyed look with Cedric, and gulped.

"Uh, Sorry. But I still think I'm right. I mean, from what we've been taught, there isn't a whole lot you can do if someone casts one of those curses at you. So unless you've got some kind of magic shield, nobody else knows about…"

Dumbledore glanced up at a display case over one of the bookcases. Harry followed his gaze and saw something he recognised. The Sword of Gryffindor. Harry frowned back at the old man in confusion, but Dumbledore seemed to have moved on from whatever thought he had just had.

"I don't want to ruin this planning meeting," Cedric said hesitantly. "But isn't this the sort of thing we should be calling in aurors to do? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm sure with three professors trained in the art of war, this is going to go fairly smoothly, but aren't we supposed to call in aurors for this kind of thing?"

Snape had given Diggory a sharp look, and was continuing to eye him with a less than friendly expression, so it was left to the headmaster to answer.

"Ordinarily, that would be the right thing to do, Mr Diggory. But time is of the essence and we must deal with this situation before it threatens our more vulnerable students. We have wasted a lot of time already" Dumbledore sighed and beckoned to his two Heads of House, "Sometimes we are called upon to choose between what is right and what is easy. I am afraid, we cannot choose the easy route."

He pointed to the map and they saw that the footprints labelled Barty Crouch were leading towards the room Harry had been sleeping in.

"It appears that out Mr Crouch has begun to look for Harry. Severus, send a message to your Slytherins, you have a method they will trust?"

Snape nodded and pulled what looked like a photograph out of his pocket. He produced a quill from within his robes and begun to write on the sheet. Harry tried to see what the man was writing, but it was far too spiky and small to be legible. Harry hoped whatever it was worked even with Snape's awful excuse for handwriting.

"Professor McGonagall, you will accompany me, if you would, to the alcove behind the Gargoyle on the second floor. I believe that will be far enough for Alastor's eye to be ineffective, but close enough to excuse our hearing a commotion on ground floor. We will join you if we see this label either join you, or stop nearby. If he does not fall for our trap, and leaves in a different direction, Professor McGonagall and I will pursue him ourselves."

Snape looked unhappy, but eyed the two students and nodded in agreement.

McGonagall drew her wand and conjured about five greyish-brown balls about the size of apples. She handed two to Diggory, and three to Snape. After a moment's thought, she conjured two marble spheres of the same size and gave them to Harry.

She turned to Diggory first.

"You recall the OWL transfiguration to increase the density of a substance? This pellet will disperse into dust if you throw it into the ground, or against a wall. You must then visualise the density increasing and a wall being formed when the dust rises. It is important to visualise the wall, or else the dust will all become denser and you will have half of a wall in your lung, understand?"

Cedric nodded, looking more than a little scared of the ball of dust.

"Good, when Professor Moody appears, you will create a wall around yourself. This will be enough to block any unsavoury curses until we arrive. It would be best if you also erect a shield charm and integrate it into the wall, to prevent any attempts to destroy the barrier."

She turned to Snape next, "You will do the same to protect Potter as soon as you engage our opponent. If there is a chance you will be hit by that spell, use another of them to protect yourself and Albus and I will neutralise the threat."

Snape nodded, surprising Harry, who had expected him to want to do everything.

McGonagall turned back to look at the map, every inch the battle tactician.

"Uh, Professor," Harry said, "What are these for? I can't think of any transfiguration that'd help me with these." He held up the two smooth chunks of marble.

"Oh." McGonagall smiled, "Apologies Potter, I was trying to play to your strengths, and unfortunately Transfiguration is not the greatest of your talents."

"Then what…?"

"Well, you are rather good at quiddich, and it is always good to keep your opponent guessing. They will probably expect you to do the same as Professor Snape and Mr Diggory and use these in a defensive manner. I was rather hoping that if the chance arose, you might be able to slam one of these into what is left of his nose."

Harry gaped at her for a moment, blinking. "Uh, yeah. I guess I could do that. No problem"

"Good."

Snape ushered Harry and Cedric out of the room and slowly down towards the dungeons, instructing them along the way.

"Diggory, you will be aiming to use primarily spells which will create a lot of noise, and will not cause any damage to Potter. You will attempt to appear as though you are protecting my person from further harm and to summon other professors to the scene."

Cedric nodded, rolling his wand nervously in his wand-hand.

"Mr Potter, you will have to keep your head through this. Do not get caught up in the duel, as soon as we are aware of our imposter, you will get behind me as fast as possible. If you are the first to notice them, then you will attempt to run out of the reach of the bond. It will simply appear as though you are scared of being discovered."

Harry nodded, "I can do that, Sir."

"And I don't want any heroics from either of you. Don't look like that, Diggory. I know full well how far a Hufflepuff can take their definition of loyalty. Potter you must get behind me, because he is after you. Diggory, don't hesitate to make that wall if real spells start flying, because he is after Potter."

They reached the top of the dungeon staircase. This one was used far less commonly by students due to its propensity to vanish after 5 o'clock in the afternoon. Also, there was a rumour that it became instead an extra chimney for the house elves to use when preparing dinner. This was supported by the fact that the walls were coated in soot every morning, and that on Saturday mornings, the whole staircase smelled of last night's fish.

"Okay, Potter. When I insult you directly, you must turn and shout stupefy, but do not channel the magic. Just in case, do try to not aim at me. And stay close, we only have a few yards."

Harry nodded simply. He didn't want to risk saying something stupid which might give them away. Snape had started complaining loudly about anything and everything.

"Of course the headmaster has his favourite little star Gryffindor. Merlin forbid that one of my students should blow something up in an accident. Blasted favouritism, they can't help but pander to you and your little friends. Even bringing along a witness can't convince them."

Snape sneered over at Cedric, getting into his stride, "Even bringing along the perfect little Hufflepuff prefect does not convince them. They have no say in your punishment now, Potter. You are still my responsibility for a few hours yet. You will be scrubbing every inch of the dungeons until the moment your Head of House thinks to come looking for you. If I had you for another week, you would never behave in the same way again, you despicable, ignorant little-"

"Stupefy!" Harry pointed his wand just off to the side of the man. He saw Snape's eyes flash in the light of what looked like a red Stunner and panicked inside for a second in case he had accidentally cast the spell, as he saw it flying towards the man. Snape flew backwards, but not quite far enough that it would make Harry fall over.

Harry shared a brief, panicked look with Cedric, before deciding that even if he had stunned Snape, it would be best to continue with the plan as it was and just hope he could protect himself and Snape until Dumbledore arrived.

"What now, Potter?" Cedric shouted, backing up a little, so he was partially hidden by a small alcove. "They might not have taken any notice of you blowing something up, but what are you going to say about attacking a teacher."

"Shut up, Diggory. It's not like you have to put up with him all day, every day! He's been doing my head in for days, I know a perfect Hufflepuff like you wouldn't understand anything about that. Everyone thinks the sun shines out of your-"

"Flipendo!" Cedric hit his mark, a heavily ornamented suit of armour on the staircase landing, which fell to pieces and began to clatter down the stairs towards the dungeons.

"You are a complete idiot, aren't you, Diggory? You can't even aim! What are you going to do next, bring down the ceiling?" Harry spat, "Furunculous!"

Cedric laughed, dodging unnecessarily, "Going for kids' spells, Potter? Gatallagi!"

A bolt of orange light hit one of the pauldrons of the suit of armour which spun and uncurled like a hedgehog, unwinding itself into the largest looking wildcat Harry had ever seen. It was about half the size of Sirius in his dog form. Harry worried for a moment that the thing would attack him, but instead it sat up, threw its head back and began to yowl loudly.

Harry stared at the gold coloured cat thing and wondered what crazy part of Cedric's mind had conjured that idea and resolved to ask the boy later on.

They heard footsteps clattering up the stairs and Cedric brought out one of his dust stones from his robe pocket, he used it to block off half of his little alcove.

Harry swallowed, steeping back a few paces so that he was standing behind where Snape's body was still sprawled out on the floor. The cat shrunk down and span back into a mass of distorted metal as the transfiguration resorted to its original form.

Somebody came flying up the stairs to see what was going on, Harry was dismayed to see that whoever it was was wearing a Slytherin uniform.

The person couldn't have been more than a first or second year, and Harry was hardly surprised that when the child turned from gaping at Cedric's half hidden body to look at him, Fowley's face was the one he saw.

"Fowley, what are you doing here? All of the Slytherins are supposed to be in their common room." Cedric said from across the floor.

Fowley was still watching Harry though. "Potter, what's going on? Everyone's going on about something in Potions, something about stuff blowing up?"

"Listen, Fowley, I'll explain later. You have to get out of here, right. The place is going to be flooded with professors in a minute and you don't wanna be caught in the middle, trust me. Quick, run upstairs and keep out of the way."

Fowley frowned, "Why should I go upstairs if all of the Slytherins are in the common room?"

There was the sound of people rushing down the stairs, and Harry thought quickly about how to get rid of Fowley in a safe way. He was surprised to see that Cedric had blocked off the rest of his alcove, and felt a bit annoyed, they could have hidden Fowley in there too.

"Look, trust me- Get out of here."

Fowley just watched Harry carefully, drawing their wand with surprisingly steady hands. Harry was surprised, since the kid had been so scared a couple of days ago when Harry had come across them being bullied.

"Expelliarmus!" Dumbledore said, appearing on the landing with McGonagall on his heels. It was a strong spell, but he had obviously been expecting someone much taller and the spell flew right over the head of the ducking second year.

"What the-" Harry shouted, diving forwards to try and protect the kid, or at least make the professors notice they were attacking a child and should stop.

Fowley got off a disarming spell of their own, which was slightly off target, and cast another in quick succession. Somehow, the spells managed to collide with Snape and Harry and both of their wands were sent flying towards the second year.

"No, Harry!" Dumbledore called, and Harry spun halfway around, to see the old man reaching for him, before he felt the ground moving at his feet. Snape was also lurching up towards Fowley, presumably to get his wand back. For a moment, the three of them collided in the middle of the room, a tangled mess of arms and wands.

Harry and Snape both looked down at Fowley, they were shocked as the child smiled up at them, and grabbed hold of Harry's bare hand with their own. Harry felt the cool metal of a ring pressing into his hand, before both of their hands were covered by Snape's larger, calloused one, trying to pull them apart.

The three of them tipped over dangerously, Fowley at the bottom of the pile.

Fowley grinned back at them both, and said, "Blood Traitors."

Harry's eyes widened and he felt his stomach drop.


	13. A Tangled Web

Crack

The three of them landed in a heap, none of them having the chance to disentangle themselves during the fall.

Harry knew instantly that something was wrong, the fall had taken far too long to happen and it had felt like they were spinning when they hadn't been to start with. And it was so quiet! Just a moment ago, voices had been echoing off the stone walls as the professors had shouted at them. He wrestled himself back from the others, pushing Snape's arm out of the way so that he could see.

The stone walls were gone, Harry thought, looking around. The walls looked like normal plaster instead. There was a couch as well, and an armchair, and a solid looking wooden table, and blood.

Blood?

Harry shook his head, and searched himself for any injuries, it took a moment to realise that it wasn't him that was bleeding. Fowley had fallen at the bottom of their pile and it hadn't ended well. The kid seemed to have hit their head off that solid table on their way to the floor, with the full force of Snape and Harry bearing down on them. Harry had started to scramble his way towards Fowley, when he felt an intense burning in his scar. He stopped where he was crouched, paralysed for a moment by the pain.

Snape stood quickly, in a flurry of black robes. He started searching frantically around the room, pointing his wand where his eyes were looking.

"Snape," Harry hissed. "What about Fowley?"

"Leave them be, Potter." Snape shot back, his voice devoid of emotion. Snape came across a bookcase and started pulling out books from the shelves, glancing at each title before throwing them onto the floor. He got through five before spotting a newspaper on an armchair, and heading for that. On his way, he strode past Harry, and pushed him back to the floor impatiently as the boy moved towards the child's body on the floor.

"Stay back!" He snapped.

There was a thumping noise from outside the room, and Harry glanced up, first to look at the door, and then to Snape, who had dropped the paper and stood with his wand at arm's length. Harry scrambled to see where his wand had fallen, but it was hard to focus past the pain in his head.

The door burst open, and Harry and Snape stared for a moment at the doorway, waiting for someone to come in. Snape's wand raised high, and Harry still feeling blindly for his. Nobody came in.

There was a few seconds of silence, before Harry became aware of the tiniest of noises, coming from surprisingly nearby.

Looking down, still slightly worried of looking away from the door, Harry jumped as he saw something furry moving across the floor.

A moment later, he shouted, recognising the large, brown rat. Snape turned to look in time to spot it, trying to fire a red stunner at it.

The rat squealed loudly and somehow managed to avoid the bolt of red light by squeezing under Fowley's leg.

Harry's hand shot after it, but was too late to grab what the rat had seen – Harry's own wand.

In a moment, the rat was upon the wand, contorting around itself, and growing monstrously. Harry lunged forwards, fists flying, but he was sent sprawling backwards.

Harry's arms were pulled behind his back and he felt something wrap around his wrists, like a rope, keeping them there. With shock, he looked at Snape who was sneering at Pettigrew, wand trained on him. Harry wasn't certain who had cast the spell on him, but he had a sneaking suspicion that it had been Snape.

"Where is the Dark Lord?" Snape asked, disdainfully.

Harry gulped and took a shaky step away from the man, balance a little thrown off. He watched Peter and Snape nervously, head flicking between the two men, ready to throw himself flat if he needed to dodge any unfriendly spells.

Harry felt slightly sick, his headache was still there, a constant sharp pain from the centre of his forehead. It was the same as first year, the same as his dreams over the summer. And he knew what the pain meant. Voldemort.

"The D-dark Lord is nearby, Snape." Pettigrew said, trembling. "Give the boy to me- you will be summoned when he needs you."

"If He is here, then I will see him." Snape insisted. "Merlin knows, he needs a servant who will be of use to him. Not a rat, or an incompetent." He scowled down at Fowley's unconscious body, not at all sympathetic or concerned.

Harry's hands slipped behind him and he felt for the rope around his wrists, trying to tell how loose it was, and whether there was an end to it.

"The Dark Lord does not accept traitors for his servants." Pettigrew hissed, and Snape's face turned downright scary.

"That rules you out then, doesn't it?" Harry interrupted. Pettigrew's eyes narrowed and he looked at them both with open suspicion. Harry wondered how the man had ever managed to fool his parents.

"Do shut up, Potter." Snape said, not bothering to turn around.

Harry was tempted to kick him, but Snape still looked pretty fierce, so he focussed on trying to free himself unobtrusively.

"I will take the boy to Him. You will leave, and return when He summons."

Snape shook his head. "If one of us goes, both must go. You recall the proximity spell, I suppose? I assume your little spy told you about that?"

Pettigrew frowned, twisting Harry's wand in his hand, "That is easily fixed."

"Do you truly believe you could best me in a duel, you worthless waste of fur?"

Pettigrew made a strange hand movement and then shrugged. "Maybe I can't, Snape."

"Stupefy." A deep voice called, and Harry and Snape flinched back as a bolt of red appeared from the doorway.

Turning to look, and struggling to free his hands totally, regardless of who saw him doing so, Harry saw another man standing in the doorway, in darkness.

Snape disarmed Pettigrew with a silent Expelliarmus, and Harry's wand flew across the room. Snape ignored it, distracted by Pettigrew pulling another out of his robe pocket.

Harry chased after his wand, ducking behind a sofa which let out an eruption of stuffing as it was caught by a nasty cutting curse. His hands pulled free finally and he put up a shield charm so that he could peek out from his hiding place.

The room was in chaos. Fowley was still lying on the floor, and had started twitching in an odd, uncoordinated way. Snape was battling both Pettigrew and the man at the door, who seemed to have very slow reactions, he didn't even flinch as one of Snape's curses caught him in the face.

Harry wasn't sure what Snape's role was in all of this. Harry had started to really trust the man over the past few days, but here he was talking about the 'Dark Lord', and taking Harry to him. Harry realised with a start that if Snape wanted to take him to Voldemort then there was very little that Harry could do about it. All Snape would have to do was to walk himself to wherever Voldemort was and Harry would be dragged along regardless.

The man by the door advanced into the room, and Harry was finally able to see him. Harry's jaw dropped in shock, because he recognised him, and it was almost the last person he would have expected.

Looking totally different to the last time Harry had seen him – at the kerfuffle which was the end of the Quidditch World cup. Mr Crouch was pale as – well, as pale as Snape. He had a deep cut on his temple with blood streaming down to the corner of his mouth, and down to drip from his chin onto the carpet. His wand was gripped tightly in his hand. Harry watched him, confused, trying to figure out what he was doing.

The man was a ministry official, so it was possible he was here to arrest the two wizards, but at least one of those curses had been aimed very near to Harry. The boy dropped down again to renew his shield charm.

Peering back over the couch, Harry was shocked to see that Crouch was aiming for him, and approaching fast.

Strangest of all, his eyes were totally blank.

Harry stared for a second before panicking and searching for any kind of exit. Even as he was looking, Crouch lifted his wand and the couch caught fire. At the same moment, Snape dodged too far to one side and Harry was tugged out into the open by the proximity spell. He swore loudly.

Crouch stared at the sofa for a moment, smiling vaguely. It suddenly hit Harry that he knew why the man was acting like that. He had seen so many people acting the same way – his entire Defence class. Mr Crouch was under the Imperius Curse.

Harry sent a quick look over at Pettigrew who was trying desperately to avoid being hit by Snape's endless barrage of curses.

"Sorry, Mr Crouch." Harry muttered, feeling in his pocket. He pulled out one of the marble blocks and hoped this wouldn't hurt the man too much. With a quick throw, a bit like a shot-put, Harry launched the ball at the wizard, whose reflexes were too dulled to dodge it. Harry grimaced at the impact of the ball into the man's stomach, and from the noise of the stone dropping to the floor.

He followed it up with a stupefy, as the man stood, dazed for a moment. Crouch wavered on his feet for a long moment, eyes blank, before falling, boneless to the floor. There was a frustrated shout from the other side of the room as Pettigrew noticed his 'ally' had collapsed.

There was a loud scraping noise by the doorway, and Harry span to look, recognising the sound. He fought the urge to close his eyes as tightly as possible, knowing that it _couldn't_ be a basilisk, but the noise being so similar.

 _"What is happening? You have awakened my master."_

Harry gulped at the size of the snake which made its way into the room. It was probably second in size only to the basilisk, many times larger than the snake harry had seen in the zoo.

"Snake." Harry said in a small voice, somewhat shocked. It headed directly for Fowley, and its tongue shot out to taste the blood coming from the child's head.

" _Potions_." It hissed, disdainfully, withdrawing and casting an eye over towards Crouch.

Snape pushed Harry out of the way roughly to combat the new threat. And Harry found himself face to face with a bleeding, but smirking Peter. Harry felt the resolve settle in his chest as he looked at the man who had betrayed his parents. Harry raised his wand and cast, exactly at the same moment as Peter raised his.

"Expelliarmus"

"Vincire"

Harry's red spell collided with a sheet of blue light from the wand Pettigrew held, and instead of the ricochet Harry was prepared to dodge, the two lights merged into one. The two colours condensed into a thin band of silvery light, connecting the two duellists across the room. Harry's wand grew warm in his hand and he started to feel it pulling him up, unable to let go of the wand. A glance at the man on the other side of the room showed Harry that he was having the same problem. When Harry was about 5 feet off the ground, the ascent stopped and small balls of light appeared all along the silver band.

A web of light grew from the centre of the one connecting Harry and Wormtail, spreading out to fill the room. An astonished noise came from below them and Harry looked down to see Snape standing directly below him, staring up at the scene, one hand grasping at his arm.

Snape was covered in blood, but Harry couldn't tell whose it was from his awkward position.

The beads of light on the chain had started to move without Harry's noticing, and had grown closer and closer to his wand. The wood started to heat up under his fingers, and instinctively he tried to force it away from himself, thinking a frantic push.

That seemed to work and the beads flew along the chain to Wormtail's wand, and the wizard shouted as it burned him, unable to let go. Flashes of light started to appear from the tip of Wormtail's wand, mostly the muted flicker of what looked like spells, which had no effects. Then something strange started to happen- what looked like a hand started to appear from the tip of the wand, a kind of grey shadow, a bit like a ghost. The hand was followed by an arm, and a head.

The three wizards watched in shock as what looked like an old man in muggle clothes pushed itself out of the end of the wand, and landed on the web of light, stretching itself. Wormtail looked petrified, and just stared as the old man turned and spat at him, before turning to look at Harry, who felt like he kind of recognised the man.

"They killed me, boy. Don't let them get you."

The man started pacing around the web, and more ghostly spells appeared from the wand, before another body started making an appearance. This time it was a woman who appeared, a tall, black witch in her forties with a sulky expression, whom Harry had seen in the papers.

She ignored Harry to berate Pettigrew instead.

"I always knew you were a little…"

Pettigrew was clearly trying to ignore her, staring petrified at the end of his wand, where something else was starting to emerge. Harry tried to work out if he should let go. Maybe while Wormtail was distracted, it would be the best time to leave? He shook his wand experimentally.

"Potter-" Snape said, diverting Harry's attention. Harry looked down at the man, distrusting. Snape simply stared up at him, expression unreadable. "Hold on for a minute."

Harry had forgotten Snape, and that any escape would have to be co-ordinated. He groaned, he had forgotten Fowley and Mr Crouch as well.

"Check Fowley." Harry called down to Snape.

Harry was fairly sure that the man cared about his little student. Snape looked over at the kid, and glanced back up at the web, reluctant. After a long moment, he tore his gaze away and rushed to the Slytherin's body.

"Incarcerate. Ennervate." Harry watched him in shock as he first tied up and then awoke Fowley, who looked deathly pale, and horrified to see Snape standing over them. Snape pulled the kid's hand straight while they were confused and pulled at the ring on their finger with a handkerchief. "Legilimens!"

"Harry, my brave, clever boy."

Harry's head whipped up, and he stared at the woman in front of him. His heart leapt painfully in his chest.

"Mum?"

And there she was. Right there, in front of him. Well, almost. A shadow of her, like the others had been. She was staring down at him, nodding and smiling sadly, her eyes full of love. Harry was struck by how young she looked. Harry knew students who had been at Hogwarts when he was a first year who must be older than she appeared. He thought about how old she had seemed in the Mirror of Erised years ago- the age she should have been, she was barely older than him now.

"Your father is on his way, love. He can't wait to see you." She smiled sadly, glancing back at where yet another body had jumped down from Pettigrew's wand.

Peter looked like he was going to be sick, and then promptly was as James Potter turned around to look at him with pure loathing. James didn't say a word to him, and instead practically ran over to join his wife.

Harry ran a hand through his hair, marvelling at how similar it was to his father's.

"At least he didn't get your hair." James said, putting an arm around Lily, who laughed breathily.

"He looks just like you," Lily smiled.

"No, his face is all yours." He replied, squeezing her close, and smirking. "Apart from the chin, that's the Potter curse."

They came in closer, faces turning serious. Harry could see the two other shadows behind them suddenly converge on Wormtail, who cringed back from them in fear, causing the entire web of light to shake.

"We have to be quick, Harry- there isn't much time. You need to get out of here as soon as the connection breaks. Try to take Mr Crouch, but you _must_ have Snape. Trust him- otherwise you will both be trapped." James spoke urgently and quietly. " _He_ has called some of his followers, so you need to get out of here, and _don't_ let Snape come back."

"Leave Peter." Lily said, ignoring the Look on James and Harry's faces. "I know how much you hate him, Harry. But he will not survive the war that is to come. He owes you a life debt, he will not be able to satisfy that debt and serve Him."

"Severus." Lily called down. Snape's eyes rolled in his head, appearing totally white for a moment until the black pupils came back into focus. He stared up at the Potters with what looked to Harry like fear. He dropped Fowley unceremoniously to the floor and the body hit with a dull thump.

He stood, unspeaking, and came as close as he could.

Lily's voice dropped very low. "Severus, there's nothing you can do about Him right now. Get yourself and Harry out of here, before anyone else gets here."

Snape simply nodded up at her, "I'm sorry." He said, stiltedly.

"We forgive you." Lily said, reaching her hand out to her husband. "Keep looking after our boy, he needs you. Be good, Harry."

"We love you, Harry." James said, running a hand through his fringe with his other hand. They turned together and walked straight for Wormtail. There was the sound of thumps from the ceiling above them.

When his parents reached Wormtail, Harry heard Snape say. "Now, Potter." And tore his wand away, breaking the web of light, which vanished.

Harry fell to the ground, where Snape helped him stay on his feet. The man pulled him along to the insensible Mr Crouch, over the body of a huge, dead snake. They crouched next to the man, ignoring the shouts of a terrified Wormtail, and the sound of many feet on a set of stairs.

Snape produced the handkerchief with the ring inside and held it over Crouch's arm, taking hold of the man with his other hand.

"On Three." He said to Harry, "One, Two, Three."

They all touched the ring at once, Harry saw masked faces appear in the doorway in time to make eye contact. There were only about four of them, wearing black robes, with gruesome, silver masks.

They tumbled back into existence in the corridor they had left not so long ago, giving Professor McGonagall a fright as she jumped up from a chair she had presumably conjured for herself. She hurried to her feet to check them over, before conjuring three tabby cat patronuses which streaked off in different directions.

"Gracious," She said, "Is that Bartemius?"

"Are you alright?" Snape stood, ignoring Mr Crouch, in order to check Harry for injuries.

"You're the one that's bleeding." Harry pointed out, waving at the blood that was covering an entire side of Snape's black robes.

"It is mostly not mine." Snape's face was carefully blank.

"Nevertheless, you are all coming to the hospital wing." McGonagall said bluntly. "We shall have to take the stairs, I am afraid – if you can both manage?"

"We could take the floo from my common room." Snape said, puzzled. "It is far closer."

McGonagall huffed. "And it would be faster had your students not barricaded themselves inside."

"They what?"

McGonagall looked at Harry, "Whatever instructions they received from Professor Snape, they have obviously taken to heart. They have not allowed anyone entry. Professor Dumbledore is attempting to gain access via the floo grate in his office as we speak."

"That's… both sensible and a bit melodramatic."

"That is Slytherins, Mr Potter." McGonagall started to lead the way up the staircase, checking that they could both keep up without any difficulty. Snape sighed and conjured a floating stretcher for Crouch.

Harry and Snape flinched as there was a sudden flash of gold and a feather appeared, floating down from the ceiling, the same thing happened in front of them, as one appeared in front of Professor McGonagall.

"The headmaster knows we're home then." Snape said, watching Harry catch it out of the air. Come along, Potter."


End file.
